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Today’s episode is all about outsourcing, hiring, and bringing people onto your team. We were never taught in school how to hire team members or how to bring people on and for a lot of us. You may not know when to hire, how to hire or how to manage a team. Lucky for you, that’s where we can help!

We realize that bring someone on can be super scary because you may think you can’t afford it, but if this is your business and this is your dream, then you don’t want to cheap out on having a dream team that can not only be an extension of you to run your business but also give you more time to grow your business! Your VA may be your biggest expense each month but it’s worth very penny.

For starters, it’s important to determine what actually needs to be done and the time it requires. If you need one off items checked off like graphic design, logo, or a blog post written then you likely can contract that work out through a freelancer (see our show notes below on some of the site we use for this). When it comes to ongoing responsibilities like answering emails, creating protocols, etc. you really want to vet these people to determine if they are right for your team.

To determine what can be taken off your plate, ask yourself, "What do I lack skills in? What do I hate doing?” because you're not going to be good at everything and there will be someone out there that IS good at it and loves doing it. So write down the things that you actually should be doing in your business. Things that are going to be helping move your business forward. Things that help you make money. This will help you get a better idea of the type of person you need to hire or what jobs can be contracted out.

When you’re ready to hire, do your research. Ask for references, ask for examples of their work, ask A LOT of questions to determine if they are a good fit. Don’t be afraid to take your time to find the right person. As our business coach says “Hire slow, fire fast." You’ll likely know within a month if they will work out or not. And if they don’t work out then don’t waste your time trying to micromanage them. Because at the end of the day, whoever you hire needs to be devoted to your business as much as you are. Your business needs to be their baby as much as it is yours. You need to be open and honest with your team - tell them how you appreciate them and tell them if you’re pissed off. Similar to a relationship, if you don’t communicate how you feel then they will never know. And when you don’t see each other face to face every day in the office, that makes communication even more important.

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TRANSCRIPTS

Kendra Perry: Hey, what's up, 360 Health Biz people, listeners, friends? What's going on? My name is Kendra Perry and we have another amazing episode of the 360 Health Biz Podcast lined up for you today. I bet you guys can guess, but I'm hanging out with someone super special today. Who do you think it is? It's Christine, my business bestie and favorite person to hang out with at 8:00 in the morning, ever.

Christine: Who else? Seriously. Welcome, welcome everyone, to the podcast.

Kendra Perry: Yeah, and we got a great episode planned for you guys today, as always. I think all of our episodes are pretty awesome, but maybe this one will be especially enlightening for you guys. We're going to be talking about outsourcing, and hiring, and bringing people onto your team, which is really important. This is a really important part of running a business and it's something that most of us have no idea about, right? We never got taught in school how to hire team members and how to bring people on and for a lot of us, this is our first time business. We both have experience hiring teams and I've made a lot of mistakes. I think, Christine, you've done it a lot better than I have. So we're going to bring a lot of our own perspective to today's episode, so we'll dive into that. But first, we do want to read a very sexy review.

Christine: Oh, it's on our Facebook page. So much love, I could die. So Rainy Miller, thank you. We adore you. She basically posted, under the little video with Dr. Tim, you should check that out, Dr. Tim Jackson, "This is my all time favorite podcast, I never miss an episode. Kendra and Christine forever! Woooo!" We love you.

Kendra Perry: We love you.

Christine: That's the kind of stuff we live for, right?

Kendra Perry: Yes.

Christine: Because we always think we're talking to the void and actually knowing that someone is listening, it's just super amazing. So thank you so much for sharing.

Kendra Perry: I know, we're always like, "Is there anyone out there?" Then when we hear that you are out there and that you like our crazy, ridiculous banter, we get pretty excited.

Christine: [inaudible 00:01:57] everyone that someone is listening, but it's [crosstalk 00:02:00]. So thanks, guys for cherishing us, for listening to us, and giving us your time. Well, we'll try not to waste it. So [crosstalk 00:02:08], this is an awesome topic. I absolutely love talking about outsourcing. We have very different ways of doing this. So the first question that we would actually talk about is when is a good start for hiring? And I don't even remember when I hired my first person, but maybe we should talk about the different kinds of hiring in terms of freelancers and in terms of assistants. So I guess that's two different categories, right?

Kendra Perry: Yeah.

Christine: I would really distinguish between people who can do no-brainer stuff in terms of maybe creating graphics when you give them instructions or entering data or something like that and then people who really have you run your business.

Kendra Perry: Yup.

Christine: Yeah. I think most of us start with the first, you know?

Kendra Perry: Yeah. I think like, you know, you can just hire these people for these one-off things, right? If you're like, "Well, I suck at graphics. I'm going to bring people on to make a logo or do this or do that," and they're not really technically like team members, right? They're just people who come on to do these one-time jobs and then maybe you keep them on the back burner for later versus like a virtual assistant, which is someone who's going to be on your team. They help you run your business. You're probably going to be in contact with them every day. And if you don't do well with hiring your virtual assistant, it can really negatively affect your business versus, you know, a one-off contractor. If you have a bad experience, you're just like okay not going to hire that person again. I can hire someone else, right?

Christine: Yeah, and it's not as expensive, you know.

Kendra Perry: Yeah, it's true.

Christine: Different platforms that we use, the most famous one are going to be Fiverr because everything used to be for five bucks. I don't think there is any gig on Fiverr that's only five bucks anymore, actually.

Kendra Perry: Yeah, I would be surprised. I would be surprised. I don't use Fiverr, but I use Upwork, and I think those are the two that we both use. I don't know if there's other ones out there, but those are the primary ones that I use. I use Upwork all the time, but I don't actually remember ... I'm trying to think of when I first brought someone on. I think I had people doing those one-off kind of jobs for a while and then I brought my virtual assistant on probably after about two years, but I actually should've done it a lot earlier.

Christine: Yeah, I think it was the same for me. I learned how to use Canva and then it took me so much time and somebody told me about Fiverr and at the time, everything was still five bucks.

Kendra Perry: Yeah.

Christine: So I hired someone to do graphics for me and then at the very beginning of my journey, I entered a mastermind that was way too advanced for me actually at the time. But we all got an account at a company like in the Philippines and they worked with Sprint. They were doing everything. It kind of worked and it kind of didn't and I think that's also what you need to be careful for. Sometimes you have people who sit on the other end of the world and they are very affordable.

Christine: However, what I found was that you need to be super, super, super, super, super precise in what you want because otherwise, they don't quite follow. They also have a little bit of a different taste than we do. If you go to that kind of market, it's a little bit more blingy. It's just a different vibe. It's different graphic design culture. So I found that you wasted a lot of time going through alterations and changes and everything. So you really have to weigh out, okay, is this worth describing a hundred times or do I hire someone who might be closer and has the same graphics and the same taste but might be three times more expensive, which is still only 15 bucks.

Kendra Perry: Yeah, so true. Yeah, you definitely want to be choosy. And coming back around to at what point in the business should people actually be bringing people in, I think you should do it earlier on than maybe what most people are doing. I see a lot of coaches out there who are doing everything and they're overwhelmed. They're stressed out, like they feel frazzled, they feel unfocused, and a lot of their time is spent doing like admin stuff that anyone could be doing.

Kendra Perry: And we realized that it's scary to bring someone on because maybe, you know, you're only making a couple thousand or less than 5K a month in your business and you're like, "Well, I can't afford it," but you know, if this is your business and this is your dream, I don't think you should be cheap with it. And I think if you can open up 5 or 10 hours a week in your schedule to actually be working on things that you need to be doing, like marketing, and doing videos, and you know, whatever those things are on your business that only you should be doing, then you're going to save a lot of time, right?

Kendra Perry: And this was the mistake I made. You know, I don't think I hired someone until I was two years in and I was doing customer service. Like all my time was spent with the behind-the-scene stuff. I was sending out the intake, responding to emails, bringing in the clients. It was crazy. And when I brought someone on, even though it costs me money, it was like oh my god, I have literally 15 hours a week in my schedule and then my business, you know ... But honestly, you don't have to spend that much. Like my first virtual assistant was $7 an hour.

Christine: Yeah, I think it goes-

Kendra Perry: And she was good for what I needed.

Christine: Exactly. It goes all across the board and I think you really need to know what you need. If it's someone who's just copy pasting emails or who's just copying links and sends them to your clients, you can have someone who's maybe not super talented in terms of maybe not even the English language or the language that you work at or, you know, who is not great at taking initiative, it's fine. If you can just tell them this is process A, this is process B, you just copy paste this. That's totally fine then, perfect.

Kendra Perry: Yeah.

Christine: My first real ... I tried a couple of virtual assistants, but the first virtual assistant I had was 20 bucks an hour if I'm someone in the States and I really reached limits very quickly with her. Like she couldn't Canva, she was not able to do a table in Word documents. I was surprised because I saw that she was looking for a lot of other entrepreneurs and I was just like, "She can't do anything." She was really nice but not very smart and she couldn't take initiative. So that was more frustrating than anything else. So the assistant that I have now, it was just really lucky. It was her first ever assistant gig, so I got a pretty cheap. But what happened is that obviously, see some my business grow because I had time, as Kendra said, I could live, I could breathe, I could be creative, I could get clients, I could actually work. So my income rose exponentially and so within the first six months, she doubled her pricing you know, which is only fair because she's totally worth it. She's my biggest business expense per month, but I'd die without her.

Kendra Perry: So maybe let's address some of the things that you outsource. Like what are some of the tasks that people might be doing? Are people even thinking like is this something I can outsource? What are some of the things that people can get other people to do?

Christine: Pretty much everything apart from you working with your clients. I even have her doing the protocols. Like I'd send her a voice memo and tell her what the protocol should be and she knows how to fill it in and she sends it. So she does the onboarding process. An onboarding process, what does that mean? So I talk to someone, they decide to become a client and then what they get is a client intake form, a scheduling for their sessions, a contract, and a payment link. That's what she does. She's in my inbox so she sends it out to them.

Christine: Another thing that she does is when people contact me for more information, she will reply to them and send them a scheduling link to get a call with me. Then protocols, I just tell her what I want, she does that. Content creation, I literally create one video. She takes the video, she puts it on Facebook, she sends it over to Rev to get it transcribed, then she takes this transcript, she puts it into a blog post. She creates the graphics for the blog posts. She puts it on YouTube. She creates the thumbnail for that. She puts it on Pinterest, makes a picture for that, makes a picture for Twitter. She puts it in my social media feeder that sends it out to all of those platforms and schedules a couple of times a year.

Christine: She does all of that. She puts it on my podcast platform. All of those things I don't need to do. It's not like they take a huge amount of time, but I hate doing them. So to me it feels like I'm working 10 hours when it's just one hour because I don't enjoy doing it and she does it much better than I do. She also organizes everything. Like she organizes my graphics, she does my Instagram posts now, and that's what she is doing and we'll talk a little bit about how I told her later. So what else can they do? Kendra, what is, what are your assistants doing that I've forgotten?

Kendra Perry: Yeah. Well, I have like a social media manager. We have a manager for our podcast, right? I hire people to do SEO, graphics, logos. I've had people do transcriptions. Like now, I use Rev, but before I used to hire people to do transcriptions. I've hired people to do slides. I've hired people to write blog posts for my website. I've hired people for pretty much like every aspect. And I would say when you're thinking of like what's the first kind of piece of my business that I should break off and get someone to do, ask yourself, "What do I suck at? What am I bad at," because you're not going to be good at everything.

Kendra Perry: I would say graphics were never my strong suit. I think I've actually gotten a lot better at graphics over time with practice, but I'm not an artist. I used to create like the crappiest, '90s looking graphics ever. So for me to hire a graphic designer, that was really helpful. You know, I don't do good at backend web stuff, like web design and all the tech stuff. So I've hired people to go in and do the backend of my website. SEO I have no desire to do, so I've hired someone to do that. I would just say like, "What are you bad at and what are the things that anyone can do?" Like really sit down-

Christine: What is it you don't enjoy and they [crosstalk 00:12:04]? Like I just hired someone for 15 bucks on Fiverr to do hashtag research. I don't even know what to look for. They love that kind of stuff and spend time on Instagram analyzing all of this. So then they just send me a list of 200 hashtags that are related to my business that I can try out and see what is working, you know.

Kendra Perry: Oh, that's a good idea. I'm going to do that.

Christine: So I just have it in my list and now I'm trying out 5 to 10 each post for a week and then the same, and then I'll just see what creates engagement and what creates followers and stuff.

Kendra Perry: Yup.

Christine: Both Kendra and I have an Instagram agency. Kendra is really happy. My account, I don't know if they lose it. It's just not the same experience, which is interesting for you.

Kendra Perry: Yeah, it is interesting.

Christine: So we'll see. But I think those are things that we don't have the time or the energy or don't want to spend the energy on and I think that's crucial because sometimes you can do it. Of course we can, but it's really draining and not productive to your business at all.

Kendra Perry: Yeah, and it sucks to just feel like you're actually working. I would say like get a journal or use a note app like Evernote, we love Evernote, and just sit down and write down the things that you actually should be doing in your business. Things that are going to be helping move the business forward. Things that help you make money. Things that other people can't do like showing up on Facebook live or Instagram stories or creating packages or working with clients. And then write down the things that either you don't like doing, they drain you, you're not good at or things that anyone can do and start to look at that and start to see, well what's going to give me the most bang for my buck?

Kendra Perry: And for me, it was customer service. You know, I was getting so many emails coming in and then I felt like when I was also the customer service people, there was no boundaries between me and my clients. They just felt like they could access me anytime because I was the person doing everything. And so for me, bringing someone on was really worth it because it helped me create that clear separation between people who were coming in the door who I may or may not want to work with versus the people I was working with. And for me, I hate customer service. I hate emailing. You should see my email inbox right now. It's a mess. It's a disaster because I hate email. It's just not my thing. So for me, to bring someone on to do that, emotionally, it helped a lot.

Christine: Yeah. No, absolutely. And I think we all have those weaknesses and also the types of customers. I think depending on what you focus on, you might have a little bit more loving but needy customers. I saw it with my price changing that when I try to charge less, my customers a little bit more high-maintenance. Now that I charge a little more they're actually much easier to work with. It's really weird but it works that way. So that's definitely one thing. You need to figure out what you don't want to do and that you can outsource. If it doesn't have your face, if it doesn't have your voice, if it's not your core that it needs, then you can outsource it, basically.

Kendra Perry: Yeah, totally. So I know we both use different freelancer platforms. I use Upwork, you use Fiverr. There are other places you can post jobs. I posted jobs on Indeed. I posted jobs on LinkedIn. You can also reach out to your community, right? Like if you're in some Facebook groups from maybe like the nutrition school you went to or you're in various groups with other entrepreneurs you can ask for recommendations.

Christine: Yeah, and I've recently also had someone who figured out that she's using an intern from university. So she went to a university and she set out to, she went to that pin board thing and she was saying, "I'm looking for an intern in graphic design. I'm looking for an intern in project management," and she didn't even have to pay them but she wrote them a review afterwards from her company, which is actually something I consider doing at some point maybe, I don't know. I'm really happy with what I have, but it's just an idea that I have.

Christine: Now, I just want you to give you word of cautions for Upwork because I don't find it's the most user friendly platform in the world. I still don't understand how it works exactly, but you have different ways you can do like a gig and you pay them a fixed amount for that or you can do it hourly. I still don't understand how it works, but what happened to me is that I had a really dishonest person who basically just manually logged all of those hours, closed the gig, the money went from my PayPal account, and then they closed that Upwork account. So they were gone with my money.

Kendra Perry: Wow.

Christine: And I'd asked Upwork multiple times, I'd told them about it and then they were like, "Oh well, that person doesn't exist anymore. We can't help you." I never got that money back. It was over €300 so it was a lot of money. I was super pissed. So I'm never using it again. But you're probably smarter than I am.

Kendra Perry: Yeah.

Christine: [crosstalk 00:16:48] break on this.

Kendra Perry: Well, the thing about Upwork that's cool is you can really do your research on the person because they have a profile, they have a portfolio, but people also leave them reviews. So you can see what people have said about them, what rating. They get an overall rating on top. You can actually see how much money they've made on Upwork. There's people who have not made any money, they're brand new versus people who've made like $200,000 on Upwork. They have like a hundred different reviews of people saying anything. They have a rating. You can see how they've been active. You can get a lot of information about them, so you definitely want to do your research. That's a really crazy experience and that's super shitty. I can't believe you had that experience.

Kendra Perry: You can always get scammed, there's always a possibility, but I've done pretty well with Upwork. I mean, I've had some bad experiences and the freelancers I've hired haven't really delivered or I haven't been super ... I had one girl go MIA and I don't know, maybe she died like I was mad but then I was like, "This is bad," because she never got back to me again and I just got a refund and that was that. But the one thing I will say is when you do an hourly, you're paying people hourly, make sure you limit how many hours a week you want them to work because it'll default as 40 and you'll have freelancers who are like, "Oh, I can work 40 hours a week," and they'll just work 40 hours a week and then ...

Christine: And they do whatever like they just ... Yeah.

Kendra Perry: Yeah, and they may do the job. Like I had someone come on for SEO where I didn't limit it and for SEO you can do SEO forever. You can totally just do SEO forever and all of a sudden I was like, "Oh my God, I owe $300 this week," and I was like, "Oh crap, like 40 hours a week. That's insane." So you just want to make sure you limit you. Maybe if you want to bring someone ongoing for something like SEO, but maybe you just want them to work five hours a week.

Christine: Yeah, just sure you do that.

Kendra Perry: Yeah, just make sure you look into that. Do your research. You can chat with them. You can even hop on like a meeting with them and actually chat with them, which is something I've done a lot, so you can get a feel about people. It depends on the job that you are hiring out for. If it's just a quick like I need a logo or this, you maybe don't need to do that. But if you're bringing someone on for ongoing work, we do really recommend that you actually speak with them and you interview them. And that brings us to the next part of this, which is, you know, what kinds of questions should you be asking when you're bringing people into your business?

Christine: Yeah, I think there's different ways of hiring because obviously Tamara, who I've hired, it's different. I literally posted in a Facebook group that I needed someone and that person needed to speak English, German, and French, which is like a unicorn thing anyway. My clients speak English, German, and French in Luxembourg, so finding someone was just crazy. Here in Luxembourg, nobody's doing virtual assistant, it's just not a thing, and it was really coincidence that she was in that group that day and was just starting to look into it. So it was perfect match in heaven it and she's super, super smart.

Christine: But I think otherwise, I would definitely ask for references if they have some, who they worked for, and I would check up on that. Too often we just take them and say, "Okay, they have them, it's fine." Check up on it because afterwards, when I had my prior assistant, when I talked to someone who had, who I'd seen had worked with her and I assumed they were happy, when I talked to them they actually gave me the same feedback. So we make sure that you check up on that.

Kendra Perry: Yeah.

Christine: What else, Kendra?

Kendra Perry: I would say be super clear about your expectations, like what is this job going to entail, and I would also recommend coming up like what is the overall goal of this position? You know, with a virtual assistant, the bottom line is that people feel that we move people along quickly in their healing journey and they feel supported as we do it. If it falls within that guideline, then people can make decisions based on that kind of bottom line. You know, like obviously, my assistant, if we have people in our membership, for example, where we mess up and if we mess up and we're in the wrong and you want to give them a free month in the membership or two go for it. That's your decision. As long as they're happy, they feel supported and obviously, if it's something we screwed up on because that's going to happen. So I think you know, being super clear about what is the bottom line of the position. What does the position entail? How do you want that person to work with you? What is going to be the communication style?

Kendra Perry: And I think too just trying to ask questions where you can draw out of someone, like are they going to be able to make decisions on your own, because the worst thing about hiring someone or bringing someone on to your team is if you have to micromanage them because that literally is pointless. Like, why even have an assistant if you have to micromanage them? You want to bring people on who can make decisions based on the company goals and you want to bring people on who don't need to come to you for every single question. They take responsibility and pride in the role and they can actually roll with the punches. Obviously, they're going to need to come to you for questions, especially in the beginning, but they should be able to be pretty self-sufficient and that's really important because if you're micromanaging then there's no point in having an assistant.

Christine: Totally, and it's a job. It's a real job. It's not just I am bored, I just want to do something. It's a real, real job. Like it's having someone in your room that needs to do the business. And I think for Tamara, I gave her access to my Dropbox folder and to my "system" and she was like, "Would you mind if I tidy this up or you?" I was like, "Oh my god, hallelujah. Go for it." I hate doing it. I don't organize. My brain doesn't work that way. So I always say that she's my right brain half really and just seeing that she took that initiative ... And you can test them on that like literally. You can do that little old test in that way. I didn't, I promise. It was just I am a mess.

Christine: So those things kind of initiative were amazing, you know? It's just fab. The other thing is so you clear boundaries, absolutely, when they get paid, what they get paid for, how they log their time. There's different platforms that you can use for that too. One that I used was Hubstaff. The way that it does, it logs in. They have to basically start logging and it takes screenshots every few seconds of they're ...

Kendra Perry: Oh, that's cool.

Christine: ... So that you can actually monitor it if you want to. So if you start to suspect that they are taking the pairs and just log time where they do anything, you could go back and actually look at their screen and see what they were doing. So that's a little bit more controlling. Kendra and I now both use Toggl, which is basically you can see in graphics what they've been working on and when they've been working on everything, so that's been pretty helpful. And then what we also used is or what I loved using with Tamara and also showed her initiative was that when she started, I just discovered Loom, L-O-O-M. It's an extension on chrome and it allows you to basically record your screen.

Christine: So when I hired her I was still doing everything by myself so I would just record myself doing it, she would watch the video and then she could do it. And what she did out of her own geniusness was to actually create like a log book. She would take notes down, which now, if I ever need another assistant, she can just pass down and that assistant will then just look at her notes and they will know the onboarding process. They will know where to look for what and she's much more organized than I am, so she did that on her own. But I think-

Kendra Perry: That's amazing though. That is so, so, so important and this is something that I can't stress enough. If your assistant isn't creating some sort of manual or log book or whatever it is, then you're going to be screwed when they leave. I've made a lot of mistakes and this is what happened to me. My first assistant, I was like, "Hey, I need you to update the manual. Update the manual anytime we change anything," because you're always going to be changing procedures and if you have a good VA, they might actually change some things to optimize them and make them better. But if they're not logging that and keeping track of the changes that you make, when you bring someone else on, you're not even going to know how to train them. You have no idea what's going on. Even though I kept telling my original assistant to do that, she didn't do it and when I brought someone new on it was literally a fucking disaster and then it turned into another disaster. I had a really bad experience hiring someone [crosstalk 00:25:20].

Christine: Yeah. Like someone.

Kendra Perry: Yeah, it was bad, but honestly, I learned so much from it, but the mistakes that I made is I wasn't clear about my expectations. I went against my intuition. My intuition was telling me something was off, but I'd made the decision ahead of time when I found this person's Instagram and I was like, "Oh, they're a virtual assistant agency for health coaches. This is so amazing. They can do everything," and I got really excited. But the interview I had with her was off. She was late and then it was off and I should have taken note of that. But at that point, I was so overwhelmed with my current assistant and how much micromanaging I was doing that I just sort of like made this decision out of desperation, which was a mistake.

Kendra Perry: The other thing that I made the mistake on is I adapted to their communication systems and not the other way around. You need to set expectations with how you want to communicate with your people. And this agency, they were like, "Oh, we don't use Slack. We don't use email. We only use Voxer." So if you guys are familiar with Voxer, it's just a voice messaging app. It has its place, but that can't be the only way you communicate with people because it's not searchable. It's not searchable and ...

Christine: And it deletes conversation after a while.

Kendra Perry: It deletes conversation and you also ramble. I don't care who you are, but you ramble on voice message and I don't have time to listen to a three-minute voice message when you could just send me a quick message on Slack. So the miscommunication in that situation was literally a disaster. I would be like, "I think I already told her how to do this," and I'd be looking through these Voxer messages and nothing was getting done. If I gave her a hundred balls, she'd drop 99. I was like, "How is this your business?" It was so frustrating. Clients were upset. Even your assistant, Tamara, was like, "What's up with Kendra's assistant?"

Christine: And it's not just you. I had another coach that I worked with and her assistant was a mess. Calls were not scheduled or I had it scheduled but she didn't and it was all kinds of things and she was like, "I'm sorry, it's my assistant," and she went through a couple of as well. But it really doesn't leave a good impression if these fuck-ups happen. It really, really doesn't, especially if you had a certain price point. It doesn't matter which price point, it never makes a good impression. So really they need to take this very much on heart and I think we decided that we're never going to hire someone else again without giving them like a trial period.

Kendra Perry: Yeah, yeah. Like you'll know within a month if it's going to be a fit. Our business coach, me and Christine share business coach, and she says, "Hire slow, fire fast." Take your time hiring someone, bringing someone on, interview them, vet their references. Really check them out, ask them lots of questions, give them a trial period. But if it's not working, then get rid of them. And maybe you'll know within a month. In about three months, that's how long it'll typically take for them to get super dialed in the position as a virtual assistant, but you'll know pretty quickly if it's working out or not. And make sure that they are following the expectations that you put forward, you know. I have two assistants now who are amazing. I'm in such a good place for assistants now.

Kendra Perry: That situation really helped me learn a lot, but you know, with my communication now it's like we communicate through Slack. That's how it goes. We only communicate through Slack. I don't want you to send me any emails and if we use Voxer, which can be helpful, you know, if you have a long message, you don't want to type it all out, you can use Voxer. But basically, I have people tag me in Slack and be like, "I'm sending you a Voxer message about this topic." They write the topic in Voxer and then they do the message so I can always go back and check it so that we know what each message is about and that I know that someone has Voxered me about a certain situation because yeah, like I said, it's not searchable. It's like a disaster to just use Voxer to communicate.

Christine: No. It's not meant for that. I think it's super unprofessional. I think it's great for different things, but as soon as it's getting a little bit complicated, you need to have it written down. You need to have a trace of it. And I use WhatsApp and mainly Voxer with Tamara, actually, but we've got everything so dialed down like we rarely use email anymore because she just knows exactly way about. So I just send her an email. Did you email that person back? Can you do this and this and this? Because we did the whole onboarding process and my process hasn't changed at all [crosstalk 00:29:40], so yeah.

Kendra Perry: Yeah, I've changed my process like 50 million times. I'm disorganized. This is why I need a VA.

Christine: Well, you changed businesses as well.

Kendra Perry: That is true.

Christine: I mean, you have so many more products than I do. You have a lot of different formats that I don't know. So it's [crosstalk 00:29:59] more complicated structure.

Kendra Perry: I know. I'm currently editing it down. I have too many offers. That's something we should talk about in a future episode is like-

Christine: We should. We should.

Kendra Perry: You know, like really nailing down what your offers are because it's great, I have all these offers and I mean, I have two businesses going right now, which one is slowly going to shut down, but it's just funny because it's like great, I have all these income streams. There's always money coming in, but it's just like I am literally a [crosstalk 00:30:23] mess every single day, so you just don't want to have that many offers. But anyways, I would say you know, you can give people incentive when you start working with. You can say like, "Hey, I'm going to pay you this much for the first three months and if it works out, if I determine that you're a good fit for the position, I'll increase your wage," or I know that our business coach after I think three months she'll turn them into an employee from a contractor, which gives them like benefits and whatever.

Kendra Perry: Obviously, it's going to be different depending on where you run your business. Like in Canada, for me as a corporation, it doesn't make sense for me to have employees, so that's not going to be something that I offer. I stick with contractors. But maybe somewhere in the States or other countries, maybe it's more a benefit to you to have employees versus contractors. But try to make there some sort of incentive for people to really try, you know. It's like, "Okay, I'm going to start paying you 15 bucks an hour, but if after three months it's going really well, I'll pay you 20," so they're like, "Okay." You know, I think it's a good incentive.

Christine: And plus, the more time you have, the more your business is going to get better. Like the more time you have to actually make money and your assistant would see it, you would see it, and then it's just obvious that pay is going to rise and my goal and in the end is to have Tamara be a part of the business, actually. At some point, I want her to have, I don't know how I'm going to do it, with shares or I don't know. No clue on how to do it. But she's been so important to the development of the business that I really want her to be a part of it, you know? So yeah, I'm thinking. But I think that's what works. Like it needs to be their baby just as much as it is yours and tell them how you appreciate them. Like she's got so many emails where I'm like, "Oh my god, I love you," because I really do. She's genius. I love her so much. And you need to tell them that too. I think it's just an honest thing and if you're pissed off, you tell them too.

Kendra Perry: Yup Yeah, I think a really good topic for us to do episode on would be leadership, right, because I think leadership skills are something that we don't necessarily come into this world having and as people who maybe never, you know, had this dream to start a business, maybe it just happened I think, which is what happens with a lot of health coaches. They just are like, "I want to learn to help myself and help my family," and then they end up taking on clients and don't even realize that they've just started a business. So I think, you know, leadership is a really interesting topic and I think if you can be a good leader, you can have a good team. I'm someone who's had a lot of jobs and I've seen a lot of bad leaders and I see what bad leadership, how negatively it can damage a business. So that might be something we talk about in the future.

Christine: Yeah, leadership and boundaries. Those both go together, I believe.

Kendra Perry: Oh yes, yes, yes.

Christine: All right.

Kendra Perry: What else do we have to talk about today?

Christine: Well, we've been talking for nearly an hour.

Kendra Perry: Have we? Oh my gosh.

Christine: Yeah.

Kendra Perry: We're good at that.

Christine: We're very good at that. But it's a good topic. I mean, hire rather earlier than too late.

Kendra Perry: Yeah, and it's better to hire earlier because if you hire when you're frantic, you're like, "Oh my god, I'm so overwhelmed. Like I'm dropping all the balls, I need to bring someone in," then you might make a bad decision, which is what happened to me. I did this twice. You know, I brought people in when I was in desperation mode and when really I should've been doing these things a lot earlier and as a result, I ended up training people for like four months because once I got rid of the agency I brought on two new assistants who were fantastic, but I was literally in training mode. It was like the most stressful four months in business that I've had in five years.

Christine: Oh yeah, I can testify to that.

Kendra Perry: Yeah, I was like, "Aah! Christine, what do I do?"

Christine: I can relate just to some extent but not really because I'm like just sailing [inaudible 00:34:14]. But let us know if you're looking for an assistant and if you want some tips or some references from us.

Kendra Perry: Yeah, you can always send us an email, hello@360healthbizpodcast.com, or shoot us a DM on Instagram.

Christine: Yes. I love Instagram.

Kendra Perry: That's where we like to hang out. We love Instagram.

Christine: We do. Go in and check out our story. We have one right now. We have one always. We have stories, but check us out.

Kendra Perry: We're pretty good with stories.

Christine: We're very good with stories.

Kendra Perry: Yeah.

Christine: Yeah.

Kendra Perry: Another thing regards to Instagram, if you liked this episode, what we love to know is what you've learned from it. So screenshot this episode, share it to your stories. Make sure to mention 360 Health Biz Podcast and tell us what your biggest take homes were because that helps us know that you like our content and that you like us, and then we'll share it to our stories.

Christine: We will and we absolutely adore all of you. Please give us feedback and yeah, I think that's it for today. And then we'll talk to you in two weeks.

Kendra Perry: Sounds good.

Christine: All right. Oh, it's me recording that one. Okay. So we'll see you in two weeks and leave us a review. We love you a lot. Bye.

Welcome to your latest Biz Bomb episode of the 360 Health Biz Podcast, where we drop a super quick and juicy tip on you that will make your head explodes from the excitement.

Today's episode is all around our favourite social media tool - Instragram! Instagram is the BIGGEST and BEST way to grow your social following (and business) of all the social media platforms. But with Instagram's algorithm, how can you be sure you're seen on your followers' feed and actually engage with them?

There are plenty of ways to engage on Instagram but there is one way in particular that works wonders AND creates that authentic human connection. What is it you ask?

As soon as someone follows you on Instagram, you want to engage with them right away. They are following you for a reason and WANT to learn more about you! And the best way to do this is to reach out to them directly.

Let’s back track though. Reaching out to ALL your new followers can take a lot of time…and let’s be honest, do you really need to reach out to Aunt Sally after she gives you a courtesy follow? The answer is no. What you want to do, is for each of those new follows, check out their profile and see if they fall into your niche market. If they do, then send them a DM (direct message) and personalize it even further by leaving a voice message rather than a standard copy/paste text message. Be sure to ask them a question so they have a reason to respond back.

If they respond, then that tells Instagram that they are interested in what you have to say and will put you high up in the algorithm to make sure they are seeing your content every time you post.

Does it seem weird to send a voice message in an Instagram DM? It might at first but a lot of people are surprised and grateful for them. It means you have a real voice on the other end of the screen. That the pictures you’re posting have a voice. It makes you authentic, and builds that human connection that everyone is dying to have on social media.

This is a great strategy for new followers and can be used to re-engage old followers that you haven’t seen posting on your feed. Scroll through your followers list and see if anyone jumps out that falls into your niche market. If they do, shoot them a DM with your angelic voice on the other end. You’ll likely be pretty stoked on the responses you’ll get.

If you like this episode, give us a 5-star review on iTunes and we will give you a shout out the next time we record. And don't forget to subscribe to our podcast while you're there!

Screenshot this episode and share on Instagram and let us know your take and we will share it to our story. We also post all our Biz Bomb episodes to IGTV so be sure to follow @360healthbizpodcast and you can watch all the Biz Bombs!

TRANSCRIPTS

Hey guys, how's it going? Welcome to your Biz Mom episode of the 360 Health Biz podcast. So this is the episode that we put out every other week that gives you a super quick, super juicy, mind blowing tip where basically it's like a biz mom. We drop it on your body, your head explodes because you are pretty freaking excited, okay? So today guys, I'm going to be giving you my top growth hack for Instagram.

Kendra: I love Instagram. Personally, I think in terms of social media for business, it is the social media platform with the biggest opportunity for growth. As of right now, if you guys are using Facebook, you kind of have to pay to play. You have to be running ads, you have to be very strategic, but the reason why I love Instagram is because you can still grow organically on it, and there are so many different ways that you can engage within the Instagram platform. Okay? But the truth is if you want to grow your following on Instagram, you can't just throw things out there and hope that it's going to stick. Okay? You have to be very intentional about what you're actually doing on Instagram, and like most other social media platforms, you actually have to build real human relationships on social media, okay? Marketing has really come full circle because remember back in the day, if you wanted to market yourself or market your business, a lot of that was actually going out in person and meeting people and shaking hands and having conversation and having these real meaningful human relationships. Really, marketing in 2019 has kind of come full circle, and now that's exactly what it is these days. You actually have to build those real human relationships, okay?

Kendra: So how do you do that on social media? How do you do that on a platform like Instagram? Well, there's a number of different ways you can do this, but one thing that I have found works super well is what I am about to tell you. Okay, so listen up. With Instagram, the most important thing is that once somebody is following you is that you actually show up in their feed, okay? Because you could have someone follow you, and then they might never see anything from you again depending on the Instagram algorithm. What you want to do is to get them engaging with you right off the bat. For all my new followers, for anyone who follows me where I feel like it's a really targeted person. My niche, my market is health coaches who are looking to bring their businesses online and looking to grow. They're online business, right? So if a health coach follows me, the first thing that I'll do is I'll go to their profile, I'll take a look, and I'll actually go into the DMS and I'll send them a voicemail.

Kendra: I'll just say something like, "Hey, this is Kendra. I just wanted to thank you for following me. Really, really appreciate that you took the time to do this. Just so you know, I'm creating some free content in regards to online business, and I would love to know what is your biggest struggle with building your business, because I will create some free content around that." It's really awesome because if they actually re-engage with you, so maybe they send you back a voicemail, or even if they text back to you, that actually tells Instagram that they like your stuff, so you are going to be way more likely to actually show up in their feed and they're going to be way more likely to see your stuff, which is the point, right? Especially if they actually answer your voicemail with another voice message. That is really engaging content. That is a very engaged person, and that automatically tells Instagram that, "Okay, this person likes this person's content, so let's show it to her more." They're going to see more of your stories and they're going to see more of what you are actually posting to your feed.

Kendra: On top of that, a voice message is very personal, right? People are usually really, really surprised, and they're usually really grateful. Sometimes they're like, "Oh my God, I can't believe you're messaging me. This is awesome," and sometimes they will be really excited to talk to you. I think not only does it help with help you win in terms of the Instagram algorithm, but it actually helps you build that genuine real human connection. A lot of the people who I've reached out with, we have actually had ongoing talks. Some of them I've made partnerships with, some of them have eventually bought my services, some of them will continually engage with my other content on Instagram, so it's a really, really valuable strategy. I think it works on a lot of different levels in terms of it helps you build that relationship, but it also shows Instagram that that person actually wants to engage with what you're putting out there.

Kendra: This is also a really good strategy to maybe re-engage some followers who are no longer engaging. If you feel like you have not much engagement on your Instagram account, maybe you don't get many likes, you don't get a lot of people commenting, maybe people aren't really responding to your stories, i encourage you to go into your follower list and start to reach out to the people who you feel like they are your ideal person. If you're a health coach and you work with female teachers, then you know you can usually tell if that type of person is following you. You can go and look through your follower list, find the people who you think are the most ideal people who maybe fit into that niche of whatever it is that you do, and reach out to them, send them a message and just say, "Hey, I just wanted to reintroduce myself to you. I know you followed me a long time ago. I'm looking to create some free content. What is your biggest struggle with weight loss? What is your biggest struggle with managing your autoimmune thyroid condition?"

Kendra: Whatever it is, go out and get personal with them and send them that voicemail. It can be a really, really great tool, and personally I think it has been one of the biggest tools that has helped me grow my Instagram account in the past six months. Okay, so do it. Let me know. Guys, if you like this episode, make sure to subscribe to our podcast, and if you like Instagram like me, you can screenshot this episode and let us know your take-homes on this episode and you can mention 360 Health Biz podcast, and we will share your story to our story. All right? If you want to see me talk about this video or about this podcast, we actually do these Biz Moms on IGTV, and it drops at the same time that it goes out on the podcast, so make sure to follow us @the360hHealthBizPodcast and check out her ICTV and engage with us. Leave us a comment and let us know what you learned. Let us know that you like this so that we know you want to get more content just like this from us.

Kendra: All right guys, I hope you found that biz bomb mind blowing, and I will see you again in one week with the next episode.

Dating is hard these days. Through being an entrepreneur in the mix and it becomes even MORE complicated. As an entrepreneur and looking for love, you have to ask yourself the important question – do you want to date another entrepreneur or a 9-5 worker? While it may not seem like that big of a deal, It's hard for people who don't run a business to understand your passion and the fact that your business is your baby. This means that you work evenings and weekends, that money isn’t always flowing, and that your partner may not be your first priority.

In this episode, we get to hear the modern day romance of Kendra and Ryan, two entrepreneurs that have been making it work for the last three years. We discuss how dating another entrepreneur can be beneficial to your business. You can bounce ideas off one another, support one another as you know what the other person is going through, and learn from one another. But two entrepreneurs dating isn’t always rainbows and butterflies. Like most relationships, and boundaries need to be set and rules established (but sometimes broken).

On the flip side to Kendra’s relationship, we also hear about Christine’s past relationship with a non-entrepreneur and where things didn’t go as planned. Again, like other relationships, money was a big factor….not to mention her turn ons include talking social media in bed and not everyone is into that.

Whether it’s a romantic relationships, friendship or even partnerships, we dive into communication skills and techniques that can be used across the board. Because it can be lonely as an entrepreneur and it's really important to find your people, or as Christine put it, find another zebra.

In addition to being Kendra’s love, Ryan Flett is also an outdoor adventure photographer, filmmaker, and educator. Over the past decade, he has worked in the action sports and tourism industries but now has focused his sights on environmental sustainability, climate change activism and cultivating positive change through imagery, film, and community connection.

Connect with Ryan:www.instagram.com/ryan_flettwww.linkedin.com/in/ryanflettwww.facebook.com/ryanflettmediawww.vimeo.com/ryanflettmedia

Connect with us on social:

instagram.com/360healthbizpodcastfacebook.com/360healthbizpodcast

@kperrynutrition@sleeplikeaboss

TRANSCRIPTS

Christine: Hello, everyone, and welcome back to this new episode of the 360 Health Biz Podcast. And today is a very special ones, because we're going to air our not so clean underwear. Very sexy though, [crosstalk 00:00:14] obviously.

Christine: Today, I have with me my beautiful cohost Kendra Perry, who I can't hit on her too much today because she's got her lovely boyfriend Ryan flat with her, because today's topic is about how you can deal, or how you can be in a relationship as an entrepreneur, and you might say a successful relationship. And we have two different stories, because Kendra is making it work, I didn't. Mine ended up in flames in a divorce, but it's a really happy divorce. So we'll be talking about all of this, about the different challenges that are there, the personal development things, just when you change and just, what we learned from this and hopefully it will help you or just make you feel less bad or isolated. Who knows? That's the way we are brutally honest. I'm looking forward to this.

Christine: So, Kendra, tell us a little bit about Ryan? What does he do? How are you both entrepreneurs? Because that's a little bit of a special one as well, both of you are actually entrepreneurs. So, we'll start off there.

Kendra: Maybe I'll start with how we met, because I think we have a modern-day love story because we met on Tinder.

Christine: Which is for me, just a getting laid platform by now. So, I don't know [crosstalk 00:01:27].

Ryan: Yeah.

Kendra: It may have changed since, and honestly, when I was doing the Tinder online dating, I was on a Tinder dating spree. I was just like, I want to date all the guys I want to have fun, whatever. I don't want a relationship. And I didn't really expect to meet someone, and we both swiped right. And I thought about it for a while, because I was like, "Oh man, he's super ginger. I just don't know."

Kendra: Yeah. We love the ginger. Yeah. So we connected and then Ryan sent me this sweet, yet borderline creepy, message.

Ryan: It was to get your attention. It was like, "You ski? You cook? Marry me?"

Christine: I would have run. I would have been-

Ryan: I know.

Christine: Oh God, bye.

Kendra: I definitely was like, "Ooh, I don't know. I don't know." But we started chatting, and then we got together at a coffee shop, and as soon as I saw Ryan, he was very handsome, and I was like, "Oh fuck, I'm in trouble." But it was a little bit more of a slow burn for Ryan. I was in right away and it took Ryan a little bit longer to get on board. But I was patient-

Christine: Wow. [crosstalk 00:02:40] understand.

Kendra: I was patient, and he just wanted to take things slow and not repeat similar mistakes in past relationships, which I can respect, but obviously as an anxious attachment type of person, I was like, "Yeah, it's cool, it's cool." And then inside I was dying. [crosstalk 00:02:59].

Christine: Yeah, yeah.

Ryan: Yeah, because I'd had previous relationships where I jumped in full boar, and within a month it's hanging out together every single day, and [crosstalk 00:03:08] been eight years. So I was very aware of that. But it was very interesting to hang with Kendra because I hadn't had a partner who skied and climbed and biked and just enjoyed the outdoors as much as I did.

Ryan: Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And then our first real date after that coffee date was a ski date, because we'd both been raised on skiing, and it was to check each other out because for both of us it's a huge part of our lives, and I'm looking over my shoulder being like, "Okay, she can ski." And she was doing the exact same thing too. You're like, "Okay, this guy can ski. We can move forward with this a little bit."

Kendra: Yeah. Exactly. We had to check out each other's skiing skills and then, yeah, we dated for a while, and things progressed slowly. I think we made it exclusive a few months later, and then at one point, maybe around six months, I just told Ryan, I'm like, "So you're my boyfriend now. That's what I'm telling people, and that's the way it is."

Christine: He rolled with it.

Kendra: Yeah.

Ryan: Assertive.

Kendra: Yeah. I was like, "This is what's happening." And then I think things got really serious for us probably around the eight or nine month mark after Ryan left me for seven weeks, I think, he went to Nepal. I was like, "Yeah, go have fun / I'm dying inside." [crosstalk 00:04:27] But he went to Nepal, and I think he ... what did you do? A silent Buddhist meditation retreat?

Ryan: Well, I did intro to Buddhism, which was a little bit of silence and meditation and teachings of Buddhism over 10 days. And yeah, dealt with some pretty significant things that were going on my life, and it was definitely the changing point in my now current life, it was definitely that trip.

Ryan: So, yeah, I came back and Kendra was very enthralled with how I was acting. And since then-

Kendra: There was a definite shift. I was like, "Okay, the walls are suddenly down. I have no idea what the fuck happened in Nepal, but the walls are down, and this is good."

Christine: Everyone, send your guys to Nepal. There we go.

Kendra: Yeah, exactly.

Ryan: Yeah.

Christine: Meditate. Go figure out [crosstalk 00:05:17]-

Ryan: Go meditate and think about stuff for a while, and be quiet for a bit.

Kendra: Yeah. It's something we don't do that often. But yeah, after that, we exchanged I love yous and then Ryan asked me to build a house with him, and that's now what we're currently doing. I think we're at three and a half years together now and yeah, we're building a house, our dream house, should be ready soon. And we've both been entrepreneurs from the start of our relationship. Although at the beginning of our relationship we are in very different places. I was new in my business, and I was broke, and I was in early entrepreneur struggle town whereas Ryan was more established.

Christine: So what did Ryan do? Maybe we should actually tell people.

Ryan: Appreciate it. Appreciate it. [crosstalk 00:05:55] Absolutely.

Ryan: I'm a professional photographer and filmmaker, primarily in the outdoor adventure and environmental industry. I've been skiing and camping and all that my entire life, and I found a way to merge my lifestyle and my work. When I was about 22 years old, I was always obsessed with taking images. So since 22 I started working for different themes, all in outdoor adventure, primarily around skiing, and about when I was 30, 29, I got a job back near Nelson here and that's about the same time I met Kendra. And that's what Kendra referred to as, when she was on the low money spectrum and the real hustle time in her business, I had this consistent thing for about four years, so I was more of a support for Kendra to be like, "Hey, you have to push through this. You'll be fine. You just have to keep going."

Ryan: And now those roles have been flipped, because Kendra has gone through those three or four years of growth and consistency, and then I quit that solid ... It was a contract, but it was almost a job. And then I quit that a year and a half ago, two years ago. And I have my photography business, which is my own sole proprietor business. And then I also have a film production business with my partner Bohdan Doval, but it's also all around film production.

Ryan: And now I'm a photographer, a filmmaker, a producer, a director, and generally the person who just makes shit happen. That's really what I do. I mean I make shit happen.

Christine: Founder, administrator, all of these things. I mean, that's what comes with all of it. When we say our job titles, it's not just that, what we do, we have to run this whole boat of things.

Christine: So yeah, I think it's super interesting because you both started out that way and then roles reversed [crosstalk 00:07:51] you started out with the same kind of foundation, and I think that's maybe the biggest difference, because, well, I met my husband, I was 27, so we were together for nine years, but I had a very different life at the time. I had a full time job. I never thought I'd be an entrepreneur.

Christine: So we got married and had kids and had perfect house and everything was fine, and it's still fine. I could still be with my husband and it'd be fine. However I'm a not fine person in a way, so I think through the personal development, I've just changed so much, and I just didn't know. I didn't know who I'd become and how much I'd changed. I think the biggest difference, and we might be talking about that too, because Kendra and I are very different in that area, is money, and a big, big problem to me. And my husband was money because that was when we would get in fight. And it's not like it drained our bank account; it was always fair. But I remember very clearly that I started to do my personal development and I really realized how I was changing and how I was growing, and how he has this restrictive traditional money mindset.

Christine: And then [crosstalk 00:09:02] where it really sparked was when I did my first 10K sale and then told him and his reaction was, "Oh, okay." And it was taking those wings and clipping them brutally, [crosstalk 00:09:15] back bound to earth, and that killed me and I was, "I cannot do this." And as it happened I met other people who understood exactly what I was doing, who also understood the work, because I think it's very hard if you are not an entrepreneur yourself to understand the struggles, and you referred to Kendra in the beginning being in those ups and downs, nobody who's not going through it will understand what that feels like.

Christine: And then finally reaching that point where you are like, "I made it, or at least I think I made it."

Ryan: Yeah, I think I made it.

Christine: Exactly. That enthusiasm, and then having put the brakes on, that's not ever going to let you fly, so that there were other issues too. But I think that was for me, the biggest, biggest problem, that I'd not see myself grow. And it was a question of am I going to lead my life and do what I want to do or not, because I couldn't do it with him.

Christine: We had a very peaceful divorce, I have to say. I left in October, we got divorced in April, we're going on holiday with our daughter together this summer, we see each other every day. So it's beautiful. I always say I have the best ex husband in the world, and definitely the best dad to my daughter. [crosstalk 00:10:28]. But I couldn't make it happen.

Christine: I always proud of myself that we communicate, and I think it crept up on me just as much as it did on him. But the differences, I think, through the personal development journey, I learned very quickly what I want, and that it's clear. And that way I knew that when I took the decision there no way back. And he knew it too. We never argued. That was never really a try to make things work again and to fix things because it was just, he knows, okay, there's nothing I can do, which he was right on.

Christine: But I think that's the biggest challenge when you are with a non entrepreneur.

Kendra: Yeah. I think it's a big challenge. It's hard for people who don't run a business to maybe understand the passion and the fact that your business is kind of your baby, right? You put everything into it, and-

Christine: More. I would argue more than your baby because it is how you nourish your baby. [crosstalk 00:11:26] my daughter, my business is the way that I can help her live, basically. So it's a lot of pressure on it, and so I think that's a big, big, big difference.

Ryan: Yeah. I feel really fortunate that we had that connection early on. I come from [inaudible 00:11:45] that's more content and visual, and I thought I knew all about social media. And then the first three weeks we Kendra, I was, "Holy, I barely know anything. And Kendra's so granular and you go micro. You understand the macro, but you go really micro. And I think the sports that we participated in and was one chunk of our relationship, and then another big part of it was back and forth about business and supporting each other, that flow of ideas. And that has continued. Sometimes we have a, actually, we do have boundaries with that, because obviously we have to set those, but it's gone really well because I wouldn't be at the place in my business right now if it wasn't for Kendra, and we've been able to support each other, and you understand those highs and those lows. I was talking to Kendra about it last night, where if I'm down and whatever's happening, she's like, "You know what, you're super talented. You gotta keep on going. I empathize with where you're at."

Ryan: And that makes it so much easier versus previous relationships would be like, "Why aren't you making money? What are you doing?" And this struggle and this growth that takes time. I even tell my business partner this, I'm like, "You know what, we're at the very beginning, and this is totally normal what we're going through." And just to have that, and from what I am learning with Kendra and I, I then take that to other clients, other partnerships to be like, "Okay, this is how you foster this relationship and understand what each person is going through."

Christine: Yes, I agree. It's a learning curve for sure, and I just feel like, for me a requirement now actually for the next relationship at some point is to be with someone who gets that. I don't think, I don't want to, first of all, I wouldn't be with someone again who has a 9-to-5, because I just know I would run into the same problem again.

Christine: [crosstalk 00:13:43] me curious, if you listening out there and you have that relationship, how are you making it work? Because I didn't. You guys are both entrepreneurs. I'd love to see how you can be happy and fulfilled in your marriage or relationship when you do have that. I wish I could have made it work, but at the same time I met at much better place now, so I on't really, in a way. I wish I could've avoided it, let's put it that way. But everything happens for a reason, I guess.

Kendra: It's true, and I think it definitely probably is more challenging, and I think most people who are listening to this, most entrepreneurs who listen to our podcast are probably in more of your style of relationship. I think it's not super common that two entrepreneurs are together, and yeah, we'd love to know. Send us an email: hello@threesixtyhealthbiz.com and let us know, because I think it is challenging and I think the other partner who's not the entrepreneur does struggle to understand maybe why you're working in the evenings or working on the weekend or why you go through these highs and lows, or maybe the money stuff. I think that's really interesting that that was such a big issue with you, because, yeah, people have a lot of messed up relationships about money, and when you're an entrepreneur you have to really work on your money mindset and believe in abundance, and you have to be motivated by money to some degree. You can't just be like, "I want to help people. I want to do this." The money has to be a part of that.

Kendra: And some other people, the 9-to-5 people, they may think, "Oh well, that's greedy."

Christine: Yes. That was the problem. When I was seeing a beautiful new Tesla, I was like, "I want one of these." And my ex would just say, "Oh, I would never get in that car with you. That is so embarrassing. It's such a show-off." I'm just, "Stop judging those people. You have no idea what they did to get money, how they work. That's not to say that everyone who has money sold their soul or is selling drugs or [inaudible 00:15:34] little kids." I think that's still ingrained in so many people, and if you are an entrepreneur and you have someone around you, even if they don't mean it, they are not aware of this, most of the time, it's not they mean it negatively, but they never need to ask themselves these questions about money. They don't have to do that, work in order to not just attract money, but actually be okay to receive it and to ask for it without feeling horrible.

Christine: And so you're just in very different places. And I'm not sure if you can ever get there if you have someone who you live with or you spend your life with constantly shitting on that.

Ryan: Yeah. And I found, even in growing up with my family, my mom was a nurse, my dad worked for the government, my sister's a teacher, they're in that consistent paycheck, get a job, do that thing. And that was always what I was pushed to be, like, "This is how you'll be successful and you'll live your life." And I was like, "I don't want to do that. I want to do what I want." And I had a lot of years of it being really tough. And I remember saying to my parents one year, I was 21, right before I got my first big photography job, and they were like, "Why don't you go and get a job in this?" I'm like, "No, I have to do this for me. My happiness is number one and what I love the most, I'm probably going to do the best." And I've stayed with that. [crosstalk 00:16:59]. Yeah. Definitely. Definitely will do the best.

Ryan: And so now, 10 years in, I keep saying that to people, and Kendra and I, we constantly talk to our friends about businesses and entrepreneurship because they'll all have an idea and we're like, "You should lean into that, even if you start just doing an hour a week." And some of them are like, "Oh, I need my consistent paycheck, and I respect that," but then there's some people who right away think, "Oh, I can't do that." And you go, "No, no, no, you can. It takes time and you can just incrementally chip away at it.

Ryan: But for Kendra and I, I find that Lisa, this is from my perspective, is that our businesses have been increasing because we've constantly had that interaction back and forth of, I guess, you can bouncing off each other and go, "Oh, how about this way you think about this?" And Kendra's really helped me with my writing, and I've helped Kendra with her imagery and website, and like I've said previously, I wouldn't be where I'm at without Kendra.

Christine: I absolutely believe that. I mean, I think we all need this bouncing bag, especially in a partnership. And I think there's nothing, honestly, there's nothing more sexy than being in bed and talking social media or marketing.

Christine: Exactly. It's a total turn on for me too, having someone go and I tell them, I had this algorithm, or we saw this statistic, or I've just read this article on SEO, and someone going, "Oh yeah, what did it say?" It's like, "What?" I'm swiping right.

Christine: But even knowing what that means, or, I don't know, email funnels or client onboarding or all these things that dominate your life and that excite you, because when you're figuring it out, it's so exciting. So, I mean that is, I think what I am, if you're listening out there, I'm single.

Ryan: That's what I like.

Kendra: Just coming back around to this idea of the person you're with or even your family members not understanding, I think that's the most important thing to keep in mind is they want you to be safe. They want to protect you, and in their opinion, they don't understand running a business, and that's not a safe option to them, especially there's a lot of negative words around running a business. I always hear this statistic thrown around that 95% of small businesses fail [crosstalk 00:19:25]-

Christine: Oh yeah. I hate that.

Kendra: When you break it down, I don't think that's really true. I think it has to do with people refiling taxes, and that could mean that they changed their business structure or they changed their business or they weren't into it. There's just so many reasons why somebody would refile their taxes for their business. But I think it's a scary thing. And the reason why your partner or your family or your friends don't understand and are confused, is not because they don't support you. I think it's because they want you to be safe, and what we're doing isn't a safe option, and it's not for everyone.

Ryan: Yeah. And I think society in general, you look at a job as this, you get it and you have a job. Whereas you run a business, that 95% of businesses go under, well, it's so many different levels. Someone could have just started something and gone two months and done a little bit of research but then backed away on it, because it's so much more of a journey and personal development and growth. It's not like, oh, not job, job. It's so much more than that.

Ryan: And most people don't understand that. I'm constantly telling people, because it looks I'm always out in the mountains, they're like, "Oh, you live this amazing life." I'm like, "You know what, I probably spend just as much time on the computer as you or probably more because I work six or seven days a week, but I also love what I do." And people are like, "I don't know how you do it," but I'm like, "When you get into the small things, it's similar." I'm doing admin, I'm emailing, I'm contacting. So it seems this amazing thing always and it's not. It's always a balance. It's always a balance of different things.

Ryan: But I find that it clicks my brain on, whereas a job clicked my brain off. I just got into a system and now I don't want to be in systems. I want it to be different and creative and always looking in new directions. And it's also on me. It's accountability. I've taken that spin of this is all on me and anything that happens in my business is on me, and that makes every single situation and every single conversation so much easier.

Christine: Exactly. And it's a lesson learned in case it doesn't work. Kendra and I were even talking about this. Sometimes you meet at another zebra [crosstalk 00:21:54] a lot of entrepreneurs being zebras, they're just different. And when you have a conversation with them, when you talk about these things, suddenly you see that spark in their eye, and it's like, "You're one of us."

Christine: I really literally think you don't always know that you are, you just feel something's off. But very often life is so comfortable that you don't notice. And it's one of the things when I talk to people, and I did a podcast recently, and it's called Just Say the Word, and you had to find one word. And my word was loneliness. And it's not that I'm a lonely people. I wouldn't consider myself emo, or anything that. But when you do do that journey, you change, and it is isolating because you start gaining new people who are 100% yours because they get to know you when you are you, but you also lose a lot. And it's not to be negative, but I just want to say that when people do figure out, oh I'm a zebra, I really want to do this. And when they start tapping into who they are, to be aware of that and that you are changing. And it might be that you are losing people, and if you are in a relationship, tell your partner that.

Christine: And I remember that last year, we were on the beach, family vacation, very picturesque, sun, beach, everything, and I was doing tapping exercises, and my husband was just like, "You're so embarrassing, sitting on the beach, tapping around and everything." And I was like, "I know it. It works." And I'm not sure if he particular would have understood, but maybe someone else in a relationship would actually be, "Okay. Tell me more about this." And I think probably what I do different now is to really say, "You need to listen to me. You need to understand what this means to be me." And even if they don't completely, I think having them try is probably enough.

Kendra: Yeah. And I think it's unlikely that you're going to find another entrepreneur to be with. But I think you just need to find someone who understands and can show interest and be supportive, and maybe you just need to be very upfront with what it's like, right? Because it's very up and down. It's very roller coaster, you're very emotionally attached to it and you have a lot of highs and lows. But I feel like maybe everyone's like, "Oh, it's so great. Kendra and Ryan are both entrepreneurs, they understand each other," and it's true. But there are still challenges being two entrepreneurs. Our struggle has been finding the boundary.

Christine: So what once you do give us some specific ...

Kendra: We have a few rules that we-

Christine: Just to get [inaudible 00:24:33] we are sharing the wall to my right, and I can hear [crosstalk 00:24:37]. I can hear the audio. That's why I have the big headphones on. Just to get the spatial awareness of where we are. Sorry, Kendra. Go for it.

Kendra: Well I was just going to say we've had to implement a few rules, which we do break occasionally, but we're trying to get better. For one thing, when the door is closed, you can't come in, because before we just burst into each other's office and the person's focusing and we're like, "Blah blah blah blah. I need to talk about this. Social media, blah blah blah. Groceries. The bathroom's dirty." Whatever. And it's just like, okay, this is not okay. We can't do this to each other. So we have this rule now, and we've gotten a lot better, occasionally it still does get broken, but when the doors close, you're at work, you can't come in. And we literally will Facebook message each other and be like, "Hey, do you have two minutes to talk?"

Christine: That's like a secret knock. ... urgent.

Kendra: Yeah. So we try to respect each other's space like that, and this is something we need to work on too, but we've tried to have a, after 6:00 PM rule, no business. Let's not just talk about business. Let's connect about other things. Let's go do things. Let's get out of the house and not talk about Facebook.

Ryan: Yeah. And it's been helpful, because we were breaking those boundaries and it was causing disruptions and also an understanding of this is my space and I'm working in here and I'm getting whatever done, and I need to focus. And for both of us, we would sometimes come in and be like, "Oh, this crappy thing happened." And all of a sudden our day just gets thrown off. You Go, "Oh, okay, now I'm thinking about that, and I feel bad, or that I'm not doing enough," or whatever. So it's better now, and when we're in our new house, Kendra will have an office upstairs, and I have an office downstairs, and Kendra got the upstairs office because she's behind her computer in her office a lot longer than am, which I think is totally fair, but to have that separation, I think, will be better.

Ryan: And then [crosstalk 00:26:49] I'll build an office, probably 12 by 12 office up in the forest, a hundred feet away from the house to really have that separation, to really feel like, oh, that's my workspace. And I think that's-

Christine: I love that, yeah.

Ryan: Yeah. Yeah. But still coming back and connecting. We cross over at lunch time and we'll if we have any quick questions for each other and then we're going through, we'll just touch on it quickly and then we go back to our work. But yeah, that spatial separation I think has been helpful, especially because this is the first time we've really done this.

Christine: Yeah. I like this rules that you don't open the door, you just know spatial separation. I think that's all amazing, and also you know that you support each other when something goes wrong. I know Kendra is the biggest champion. She's been that for me too. [crosstalk 00:27:38]-

Kendra: "Nothing's working."

Christine: Like, "I believe in you. You're so awesome." "Okay, I am."

Ryan: Yeah, yeah.

Christine: I have to say my ex was supportive too, because I had my meltdowns too. And he would just say, "You always make it," and he's right. You always make it. And he was right. It's not that he wasn't supportive, it was just a bigger mindset kind of thing. But yeah. Oh, it's so interesting. I'm taking notes for future Mr. Perfect [crosstalk 00:28:08].

Ryan: And I did find that the small breakdowns that we each have, if we didn't have each other [crosstalk 00:28:20]. Oh, yeah. And I feel like, especially in the past, that those breakdowns for me would have been longer. They would have stretched a longer span of days. Whereas I can voice what's going on and I think Kendra can reflect this as well too, but I can voice what's going on and then Kendra and empathize with it and then be like, "Oh no, you're going to be fine. I've gone through this and dah, dah, dah, dah, dah." And it just shortens that period to be like, "Oh no," next morning I'm like, "Oh yeah, I'm totally fine."

Christine: That's really great.

Ryan: Yeah, because I had, once again, so once I'd bounce ideas off. So simple, but ...

Kendra: It's really important to find your people as an entrepreneur, because it is really isolating. When you said loneliness, it is very lonely. You work from home, you work in front of your computer. And that's why me and Christine connected quite quickly, because we were totally on the same wavelength we had a lot of the same goals. And it's funny that we're so close because we're actually incredibly different. We're very, very different. We differ on some really big foundational stuff-

Christine: Money being one of them. But it's still works. It's weird.

Kendra: Yeah. And just even you're the glam city girl, I'm the mountain girl. You live in the ocean. I live in the mountains, but we connect on that business thing and when we hung out in San Diego in March, we had so much fun. It was great. [crosstalk 00:29:43]-

Kendra: You've gotta find your business besties, whoever that is, and they may be people who are online. And that's typically how it's going to be depending on where you live. I know where you live. There's not a ton of entrepreneurs and we're in a small town, so we don't have that many either. But, find your business besties, you need a business bestie. You really do.

Ryan: Yeah. Even in comparative industries. For me, I've been around a lot of athletes. I've been around filmers, lodge owners. I'm not lonely in my business. It's not as many entrepreneurs, but I've had people to constantly chat with or go over things with and be open minded to be like, "Oh, I wouldn't even have thought about that." And a big thing for myself in entrepreneurship is, now, I always try to come from the standpoint of trying to understand my customer clients, and how I can bring them the ultimate value. And that has made every single situation way better. And I have all these people, like all these marketing managers being like, "No one has asked me what I wanted in two years."

Christine: That's [crosstalk 00:31:09].

Ryan: Yeah. And even two or three years ago, I wouldn't have thought, because I'm thinking, oh what do I want to do? I, I, I, and now I come from like, "Hey. I want to understand you." And right away, that just opens people up to be like, "Oh wow, oh, oh you want to know what I want? Really?" And it also makes it easier for me, because I understand what they want and then I write them a proposal exactly for what they want. And I had two previous contracts over this last month where I said some key words because I really interviewed these marketing managers or general managers and I was having a meeting with them. They were like, "You just read my mind." They're like, "You actually just read my mind perfectly."

Ryan: And it seems a trick, but it's just being open minded and really understanding of what the value I can bring someone, which most entrepreneurs don't really do. It's like, "I this, I that." That's not what rocks the boat.

Christine: It's so interesting because I think Kendra and I, we do coaching inherently, but I do totally agree that in, especially in the creative industry or anything like that, it's very often the case. And even if your clients are something where you're just like eye roll, you can manipulate it in a way that they stay [inaudible 00:32:24] that it's what they wanted and we can still make it work.

Kendra: Yeah. And I think it just comes around to serving your people, right? Knowing what they want, because in the end we need to be of service as coaches. Me and Christine are coaches and we serve people, and yeah, that's really where it needs to come from is like what do they need? What do they want? what are the words that they use, which is what Ryan is doing just in a different industry. He's listening. He's like what are the exact words that they use and the things that they want, because in the end you had to make it about your customer, your client, and not about you.

Christine: Just this conversation that we have here is something that I never had, because even if I just used the word client with my ex partner, it would feel really weird for no reason. I just feel it off. And also because we got to know each other when I wasn't [crosstalk 00:33:18] clients, when I wasn't "selling myself," but yeah, that's what I do. So I think it's so weird. It's natural now, but it's so strange when you change that way. It's really strange.

Ryan: Yeah. And I find another big change has just been asking, constantly asking. I'm in an industry where people want to work with these big brands, and they're like, "How do I get it?" And people think that you build a website and you put some stuff out there, they're going to come to you. And I had that mentality for a long time, and now I'm in that I chase, and I try to understand, and then I pitch. [crosstalk 00:33:58]. Yeah. And always coming in and thinking of how do I bring value and where do we align? And I use that a lot. I find our ideals and our morals and our goals align. I'd love to collaborate, and I always say in emails, "I want to see if I can bring you any value."

Ryan: And it's also not marginalizing myself. I say, "Hey, I do great work, but I don't fit with everyone. But for the clients that I do click with, we can create absolutely amazing things together." And it puts the standpoint where it's a little bit of an ego, but it's also being like, oh, I just won't take all work. It's going like, "I want to find who works well for me because I have a certain set of skills that I can give you, but I want to make sure that we're on the same path, because that is going to be the foundation of creating great work together."

Ryan: Yeah, yeah. She's my main model. She gets a lot of Instagram imagery out of that. Don't you, babe?

Kendra: Yeah. I do. And you've really helped me edit my photos. I get a lot of compliments on my photos and that they look cohesive and they're really nicely edited and I owe that to Ryan. He's really helped me. And I do it all through phone apps, iPhone or Google apps, so it's awesome.

Kendra: If people are into outdoor photography, if they want to see your work, Ryan, where can they find you?

Ryan: You can check out my main website, which is ryanflettmedia.com or you can check out my Instagram, is @ryan_flett, F-L-E-T-T. That's the best way to look for my work. And also my film production company, which is altuscollective.com, A-L-T-U-S Collective. And that's my newer film production company. And yeah, that's more of the road that I'm going down. And I find that that stream is opening up a lot of doors, because I'm not pigeonholing myself into just photography, but I'm coming from a standpoint of ... I'm an extrovert, obviously, and I like to control, I'm quite self aware that I like control, but I've been able to harness those and be like, okay, I understand the visual side. I really like organizing, I like to have some control, but I want to be able to create a great product for people.

Ryan: So I find, with my business partner and other clients, where I fit best and also being very aware of my strengths and weaknesses, and my partner is more of an introvert, but he's extremely talented filmmaker, and he's a little bit more reserved but I try to empower him as much as I possibly can, be like, "Hey, you're the expert in this. This is what I think, but I want to hear any feedback you have or any new ideas or anything." And fortunately we're both fairly level headed and have these great conversations. One thing we really do is every project we get, we evaluate if we're on the right path, because we don't want to [crosstalk 00:37:26]. Yeah. And I think this is a thing with entrepreneurs that I've talked to where you know you need to make money, you need to go off tangents to grab money, but as you continue on, you don't want to keep doing that and then being spread so thin on this way and you're not known for anything.

Ryan: So we're making sure that we're on a defined path with our vision and our goals and we constantly reassess and be like, "Is this something that's carrying us forward towards our goals?"

Christine: Perfect. I think that's incredibly important, because there's a lot of opportunities that are really not opportunities in disguise. They're really going to help build someone else's business and not yours. And I think in the beginning you say yes to everything, but like Ryan said, you got to figure out what's your ultimate goal and what's actually going to move you forward and learning to say no. That is actually really empowering, even though it's like, well that's going to make me money but it's not quite what I want to do. So that's a really nice way to tie things up.

Kendra: And you guys should check out the YouTube video because Christine's in a super sexy shirt. So all you [crosstalk 00:38:39] rich entrepreneurs out there check out the video [crosstalk 00:38:43] on our YouTube channel areas. But it's so hard. These guys are in ski costumes and I'm [crosstalk 00:38:51] we use outside and just want to tell everyone.

Christine: All right, well thanks so much Ryan for hanging out with us today. It's been a [crosstalk 00:39:00] conversation, we really appreciate it.

Christine: And, guys, as always, we love Instagram. So if you are listening to this episode, take a screenshot, share into your stories, make sure to mention 360, help his podcast and let us know your biggest take home or what your favorite part of the episode was. And then we will share it to our stories.

Kendra: Or tips.

Christine: Tell us how did you make it work? How did it not work, what is your lesson? We want to know that stuff, because obviously you don't know everything so you can teach us a lot too. Or if you have a single friend, it's fine.

Kendra: Just send all your single friend photos to hello@360healthbiz [crosstalk 00:39:39].

Ryan: Watch out for that.

Christine: All right. With that, we're going to call it a day, so you can check everything out, video, blog post, audio on 360healthbizpodcast.com, on our Instagram, please tag us and leave us a review and we will talk to you in two weeks.

Drumroll please!!! The secret to pushing through the fear that comes with running a business? Is realizing that the fear doesn’t go away. Not much of a secret hey? No matter how long you’ve been in the business, you will always be fearful, feel vulnerable about something!

You may feel impostor syndrome, have self-worth issues, or just feel like your confidence has gone out the window. You are not alone in feeling this way. In fact, a lot of times when we sign up to be a health coaching, we don’t actually realize that means that we were going to have to put ourselves online out to a bunch of strangers.

We get it! It still feels uncomfortable putting ourselves out online. It always feels uncomfortable launching a new product to the Internet *cough* like Kendra's HTMA Expert Course *cough*. It always feels uncomfortable when you're vulnerable. Putting yourself out there online is like sitting on a podium and letting people throw judgment at you.

But with fear, can come great reward and success! And if you don’t fit through the fear, how will you ever know if you’ll achieve your goals and establish yourself as a successful business owner?

So the secret is: the fear doesn’t go away. And you absolutely MUST push past it. No matter how many courses you do, unless they are self-help courses, that fear will remain.

What action are you going to take this week to help your business move forward and help you push through the fear? Let us know in the comments on any of our social channels, or leave us a review on any podcast listening platform!

Some of our favorite ways of pushing through fear? Journalling, visiting the therapist, but above all else, acknowledging that yes – we am scared and yes, we WILL get through it.

Interested in HTMA - Hair Mineral Analysis Testing? Kendra has launched a brand new 6 week course that not only teaches you how to interpret HTMA but also how to confidently develop protocols for your clients! Sign up here and don't delay! The course closes on August 19 and starts August 20!

Hey guys, Kendra here. Welcome to your Biz Bomb episode of the 360 Health Biz podcast. So this is where we give you a super quick tip for your biz and it's so juicy and it's so awesome that it's basically like dropping a bomb on your brain and then your head explodes.So today we're going to talk about pushing through fear and I'm going to tell you the number one secret to pushing through the fear of putting yourself out there on the Internet. Are you guys ready for it? We're going to get right into it. Drum roll please. The secret to pushing through fear is realizing that the fear doesn't go away. It doesn't go away.Regardless of where you are in your business, when you're trying something new or you're doing something a little bit different or doing something out of your comfort zone. And let me tell you guys, you cannot run a business inside your comfort zone. So the fear, it doesn't go away.I still get scared every time I put something new out online. Every time I do anything that's a little bit different than what I've currently been doing up until that point, I still get scared. I still have a bit of self-worth issues and I still feel the fear of putting myself out there. And I think this is a really, really important thing to realize. Even though you might feel a little bit annoyed with me right now because when you realize that the fear doesn't go away, what you understand is that you just have to push past it, right? And I think a lot of us, we have a lot of fear. We might have impostor syndrome, we might have self-worth issues, we might just not have a lot of confidence. And a lot of times when we signed up for our health coaching school, we didn't actually realize that meant that we were going to have to put ourselves online out to a bunch of strangers. It's a weird thing, right? It's not normal.So the thing is there's no point in waiting until you get that next course or you're like, "If I do this, I'll feel more confident. Or if I get this knowledge, I'll feel more confident or I'll feel better about myself." Whatever it is, there's no point in waiting because regardless of how many courses you've taken, you're still going to feel that fear.So when you know this, you realize that you just need to push through it. The only way to get over it is to not let it hold you back. And that is the thing, regardless of where you are, the fear is still there. The biggest difference though is that the fear stops holding you back. The fear stops being an excuse for not taking action. Okay?So like I said, I still feel the fear and when I feel it, I acknowledge it and I realize that it's uncomfortable. I try to sit in it for a little while and be like, "Okay, this is pretty uncomfortable. I don't know about this," but I don't let it hold me back. So there's no point in continuing to update your education to take more and more health certification courses, thinking that that's going to give you more confidence. That is not going to make the fear go away. It doesn't go away. I've said it, I'm going to say it again. The fear does not go away. The uncomfort does not go away. It always feels uncomfortable putting yourself out online. It always feels uncomfortable launching a new product to the Internet. It always feels uncomfortable when you're vulnerable. Putting yourself out there, basically sitting on a podium and letting people throw judgment at you, that's uncomfortable, and that's never not going to feel uncomfortable.So now that you know this, hopefully what you realize is it's uncomfortable. Running a business, it's uncomfortable. It doesn't feel good. It feels weird. It's scary. It makes you doubt yourself. But if you don't push past the fear, then you're never going to get yourself out there. Which means you're never going to have a successful business and you're never going to achieve those big, big, big goals that you have.So this is really important, guys. I want you to tell me in the comments what action you are going to take this week that is going to help to move your business forward. Even if it's the tiniest, tiniest little action. Even if it's just sending an email to your email list, doing a Facebook Live. Maybe it's jumping on social media, jumping on Instagram Stories, doing an Instagram Live. Whatever it is, we want to know you if you're on IGTV right now because we do release these episodes on IGTV, so if you want to watch me on IGTV and see my face, you can leave me a comment and let me know what is the single action you're going to take this week that is going to help you push through the fear. Okay?Let me know. If you're listening on the podcast, shoot us an email. Hello at 360healthbizpodcast.com. Let us know what is the one single piece of action you're going to take. Push through the fear because nothing you do is going to make it go away no matter what. When you're new to this, you're going to feel uncomfortable. You're going to be scared, and it's not going to feel so good, but you have to do anyways. So let us know.All right guys, I hope you enjoyed this episode. Make sure to take a screenshot of this episode. Share it on Instagram, mention 360 Health Biz podcast. Let us know what your biggest take-home was and we will share our stories. That helps us know that you like this content and you want us to keep delivering it to you. And remember, we release an episode every single Wednesday, so we will see you in a week from now.

Personal branding is THE most important thing in 2019 when it comes to marketing yourself and your business. While brand colours and fonts are important, no one connects with a logo, they want to connect with YOU as a human being and as a practitioner or health coach.

If you are worried that people won’t like you…won’t like that post you put up, then you need to work on yourself before you work on your business. Here’s why. We ALL have triggers in our businesses. Our last episode with Lori Kennedy talked all about this and we talk about it again today…your business WILL bring out insecurities that you may or may not realize you have. As Kendra puts it, she sometimes feels like she’s “still that girl in high school who's wondering if anyone's going to show up to my party”. So you need to make sure you have your support team to support you, so you can support others.

But let’s get back to personal brand. When you show up authentically, fearlessly, genuinely, and honestly….ladies and gentlemen, you have your brand. But don’t expect it to happen overnight. And if you’re just starting out, don’t expect it to stay the same. Often time our clients can actually shift our brand and our niche! It's not like you're just going to listen to this episode and know exactly what to do. It's going to be a work in process. You're going to make some mistakes. You're going to have to switch things and change things and revamp things. It's always a work in progress, but in the end just don't try to be who you think you should be, just be you. Just be who you are, exactly how you would in everyday life.

So how can you make your brand you? Kendra and Christine offer some great tips in today’s episode including how to make your Instagram more searchable, which platforms you should be on, ways to discover what your brand is (hint JOURNALLING!) and if you decide you can’t do it yourself and need a brand coach – what to look for in a brand coach.

Oh, and don’t give a fuck what anyone else is doing. We like to say fuck…it’s part of our brand.

Christine: I know its been like, I texted you, so it's like, "I miss you. It's been too long."

Kendra Perry: Yeah, we haven't recorded an episode in a while so we're super excited to hang out with you guys today. And we're talking about a topic that is so important. It's so, so important. And a lot of health coaches don't get it, right?

Christine: To be blunt, it's like duh, but no ... it's very true. And I think that Kendra and I both didn't get it for a long time.

Kendra Perry: Oh yeah. I only really got it like a year ago, I swear.

Christine: I agree.

Kendra Perry: It's something that's kind of like ... it's not super tangible, you have to kind of really think about it and kind of know what you're doing. But we're going to be talking about branding and personal branding. And the reason why we want to talk about this is because maybe in 2017 this was less important. Maybe in 2018 it was important but not the primary thing, but in 2019, it is like the [inaudible 00:01:16], you have to be successful. You need to have a personal brand. And in order to do that you actually have to know what that is.

Christine: Totally. So we're going to talk about that. We're going to give examples about how you get there, what to watch out for. Also maybe if you hire someone, you know what you should look out for. But first, we want to shout out a very special thank you to [Kimmy Classon 00:01:38], because she wrote us a five star review on iTunes. We love you.

Kendra Perry: We love you.

Christine: So here's what she's saying. "I'm not even a health coach and I love this podcast." Like this seriously, just the [inaudible 00:01:51] is just like makes my heart sick. "I use all the actionable steps in my business and they worked magic and momentum in my mission. I feel empowered that I too can build my biz of my dreams when I listen to these ladies and their amazing guests. So helpful. Thank you."

Kendra Perry: Thank you Kimmy. And I actually know Kimmy, and she's a sustainability coach. So she's done some really cool work with sustainability and climate change so follow her on Instagram.

Christine: I tip my invisible hat to you Kimmy. Like seriously. Amazing business. We're super happy that we can help. And actually, I'm going to drop a little teaser here because Kendra and I, we're working on something where we might be able to help you even a lot more in the future. So stay tuned. Just throwing that out there.

Christine: Yes, branding. So I think we have to talk a little bit about what branding used to be. So we are the same age pretty much. And I think branding for a long time used to be the logo of MTV or Nike or McDonald's.

Kendra Perry: Like the colors, the font, you know. Visual, the visual.

Christine: Exactly. And the same colors or the same font all the time. And it was pretty much the graphic, I would say.

Kendra Perry: The graphic was really, really important. The logo was really important. And I mean I stressed so much about my logo when I first [inaudible 00:03:32], and now I actually haven't updated my logo like the whole time I've had my business. I need to update it but it doesn't really matter that much, so I just don't care.

Christine: Exactly. Exactly. So we will focus, obviously if you have a product it's still a little bit different. But we will talk about us as people, as service providers, where your brand is something completely different. And please keep all of this in mind when you're also looking to hire something with your branding, because there are people who are trained in this, but there's also people who are used to work with companies, or are just a little bit outdated frankly, who will get it wrong.

Christine: Yes. Just a couple pointers on what to look out for. So as Kendra said, we were at this social media marketing conference, and even before we noticed how branding is completely different. It doesn't have to do with your font, in a way. It does, but the most important piece of the puzzle is actually yourself. And that makes a lot of people squeal inside. It's like, "Oh no I don't want to. But I'm not special. I'm not cool. I'm not busy." Or whatever bullshit is in your head. And I think we're going to give you tangible action steps this episode. But I think the word that needs to go with branding, if you have your business and are selling yourself, and I want you to say that out loud actually, "I am selling myself." Without having the image of Pretty Woman and being a prostitute in your head.

Christine: Because a lot of time when we say this, "I'm selling myself." It's a connotation we just have, and it's bullshit. So I think the word that goes hand in hand with branding is personal development in a way, because you need to be you and you need to be authentic you. So I think the easiest is if Kendra and I are talking a little bit about our steps, so Kendra why don't you start a little bit with you're really, really happy with your brand right now, and it's totally is, so how did you get there?

Kendra Perry: Yeah, well I think ... well first of all was realizing that what people want these days, and we talked about this a little bit over the past few episodes that we recorded, people, they want to connect with you. We're in an era where social media is like a main way that we connect with people and it can feel really impersonal. So I think what people really are looking for is real human connection. They want to feel like they know you and that maybe they can be friends with you. And they want to feel like I could hang out with this chick. Like I really like her. She could be in my friend group and that would be awesome. And we would just hang and it would be cool.

Kendra Perry: And so I think for me the first thing was realizing that it's less about a brand so much as it is about a personal brand. You mentioned that with personal development, if you were a coach, and if you're listening to this podcast, you're probably a coach of some kind, whether it's a health coach or a fitness pro, whatever is is you're doing. You are your brand. So for me it was realizing that my brand is me, and I needed to stop faking what I thought people wanted to see me as, and be quote, unquote, "professional", and just be myself. And so that meant sharing more about me. So if you guys follow me you probably know that I'm really into the mountains and the outdoors, and I love adrenaline sports, right? So-

Christine: And crashing your bike, it's like [crosstalk 00:06:56]

Kendra Perry: Totally. Crashing my bike and wrecking my body. That's my thing, right? And so it was about figuring out how to infuse the things that are really important to me, my core values, which is being in nature, being in the mountains and pushing myself with sports, into my brand message and into what I'm actually doing with people. So it was taking a step back from just recording videos, with make up on, and looking all professional, and recording videos in my bike jersey. Or as I'm going for a walk or on the mountain bike trail, or whatever it is, and actually bringing that into what I do. So I think for me, it was just realizing that your brand is who you are.

Christine: I agree.

Kendra Perry: As a core human being. And what you stand for and your values. And it's not easy. It's not like you're just like, "This is me. This is what I stand for and I'm going to start combining my brand and who I am." It's a process, it takes time, and it takes a lot of deep personal work. Which I think comes back around to the personal development thing you were talking about Christine, right?

Christine: Yeah, and I think if both of us look at our history. I'm on website number four most likely. I love my website now but it's because I've changed it because I've grown. And it's fine. It took me three years to figure out who I am and what I want to do. I can confidently now say that I'm totally me and I love it, but it's not always been that great. So if you are a newbie coach, here's a little advice with love. Don't spend all your budget on a branding person yet. I would actually advertise you to keep it a little bit more generic in terms of clean and simple, rather than going all in, thinking you know who you are and thinking you know what your clients want and what resonates with them. Because I guarantee you, you will change again. And I'd rather use that budget on a coach or an energy worker, or whatever you are into, to help you figure out what makes you comfortable saying that sentence, "I am selling myself." Because if that doesn't feel comfortable to you, you have work to do. Until you get there, I'd budget more into that journey than necessarily the branding.

Kendra Perry: Yeah I completely agree, because the thing is you probably are going to change your niche. The niche that you start with, I would say more than likely you're going to change it at some point, right?

Christine: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Kendra Perry: You've changed your niche once or twice. I've changed it like four times. And I think it's just because you're going to think, "Oh I really want to talk about this topic." You're going to get out there, and maybe you're going to get sick of talking about it, or maybe your interests are going to take you elsewhere. Or maybe the people who are following you are going to take you elsewhere, and that's okay. So I do think go light, pick a few colors and fonts, that's cool, whatever. And then just actually sit down and journal. Actually sit down and think about who you really are.

Kendra Perry: When you sit down ... and I'd like to give the person who I heard this from credit, but I can't remember where I heard this, but it's really good. It's like your brand is what people say about you when you're not around.

Christine: Oh yeah.

Kendra Perry: Isn't that good?

Christine: That's good. It's very good.

Kendra Perry: Because how would you describe me? Oh she's like crazy and off the cuff, and outgoing, and outdoorsy. It's my personality, right? It's how people would describe me. So think about what people would say. And if you don't know maybe you should ask your friends and family.

Christine: Mm-hmm (affirmative). And I would also be ... whatever triggers you, whatever makes you feel uncomfortable, that's the point you need to investigate. You need to figure out why. Is it actually you or is it someone else's voice in your head. Until you understand who you are and what is actually your authentic issue, you will not be confident enough, and authentic enough. Because authenticity cannot be faked. Having said that, I have kind of a double split persona in a way. So I like different things. I like to be completely glam. I am now, also really like to be sexy, but I also really like to hang out with sneakers and a et-shirt. And I sometimes make it a point to go to these networking points where you have suit guys and ladies in their pant suits and stuff, and I just show up in trousers and sneakers because I'm like screw all of you, I can do whatever I want.

Christine: So I have this double persona, but the way that I did it was, okay, this type of persona is great for my website in terms of the first impression, also because I charge a certain price point. But when I'm on video or when I do my Instagram stories, I'm very, very basic and down to Earth. And if you go to my Instagram you'll also see that my photo shoots are like that. Some are a little bit more posh and some are just with sneakers and a et-shirt and jeans. So they're all part of me, but I'm having to say it's always polished most of the time, but if you do charge a certain price point, you also, you don't have to, but it can help to appear in a certain way. Again, it's authentic to you though. I love my Louboutins. I Have to say I never wear them if I have to wear them for more than 10 minutes walking, but I look pretty damn hot when I do wear them. So it's like this double thing. But you need to own every piece of you. And I think, depending on what your business is, you push some of it forward for your website, but you need to be comfortable with it.

Christine: If you never wear shoes like that because you're uncomfortable or because you don't like the people who wear those shoes or whatever is coming with it, don't do it. Really, really don't do it. People smell it out. And I think in the end you need to remember that people will get to know you. They will buy your service and they will get to know you. And if it doesn't coincide, they will be disappointed. And damn, that's also how we have our dream clients because they connect with the authentic us. It's a take it or leave it thing. If you don't like the way we are, you know what you get, basically. We don't sell anything that's not authentic. And I think that's how you get the raving testimonials afterwards because people actually know you. And you didn't promise anything that didn't happen. And you didn't sell yourself as someone who you're not. So I think that's super, super important to understand.

Kendra Perry: Yeah, I think it's a really good point. I was speaking with a coach the other day and she was getting frustrated with social media, and trying to show up as who she thought she should be, right? Which was what we were talking about in the beginning. And she's someone who has a big ranch, and she has horses. And I mean all her days are spent outside with the horses. And I was like, you need to do your videos in the field with your horses. And she's like, actually I did a video in her horse stall where she was picking up horse poop and talking about how the poop ... it's annoying to pick up, but it means her horses are healthy and stuff like that. And kind of weaving it into health and whatever. And she was like, "I felt really fired up in that video." I'm like, "Yeah. Because you're in your element." Right?

Christine: Exactly.

Kendra Perry: Just like Christine said, if you're not a fancy person, then don't do a photo shoot wearing all this makeup and a fancy dress.

Christine: No. Oh it looks horrible.

Kendra Perry: My photo shoots are action sports stuff. Me in casual wear. Sometimes I just have selfies with no make up on because half the time I'm in the forest biking and my make up is off my face. It's streaming down the side of my face because I just did a podcast and now I'm going biking and I'm sweating like a pig, right?

Kendra Perry: So I think it's about figuring out who you are, but showing that on your social media and on your website. People should really feel like, like Christine says, that it lines up. When they meet you in person you should be the same person. And people are going to feel like they know you and when they actually meet you they want to be like, "Oh wow. She's just like she is online."

Christine: Exactly. And it's so funny because I see people on Zoom, when I have my first sessions with them. And they're like, "Oh you actually look like you do in your photos. You look the same way." And I'm like, yes. Because they like, "Well, I've people when I saw them on their website and then I saw them on video and it's completely crazy."

Kendra Perry: Yeah, totally.

Christine: Hang on, just one second. It's raining and one of my windows closed automatically and the other one hasn't. So now I'm wondering if they all close automatically. Okay, it's fine, sorry.

Kendra Perry: Random, side note there.

Christine: Sorry, sorry. I just wouldn't want it to [inaudible 00:15:34] anything, but fine. Yes. So, no, I think that's really important. And that's also why I really want to say, if you want to work with a branding coach, which I think, at some point, you should do. Someone who writes the copy and someone who understands fonts, who just knows all of them, and who can tell you immediately this corresponds your persona. Here's a really important thing to keep in mind. First of all they need to understand what you do. Because yesterday I talked to someone, and she's doing, she's a licensed psychiatrist, but she's also working with meditation and energy work. When she was working with a branding coach, they had no idea what she was actually doing. And she was like, "Okay how is she supposed to ..." Sorry cat ...

Kendra Perry: Aww cute.

Christine: "How is she supposed to write or to represent me if she doesn't even know what I do?" So I think that's a big, red flag right there.

Christine: The other thing is that if, as soon as the coach or consultant, tries to fit you into a box, run for the hills. It's just not what they should do. They should listen and then they should work and design something upon it. They should not say, okay, I think you should be this and this and this, because this and this and this sells. Bullshit. I call bullshit.

Kendra Perry: I worked with a coach who kind of did something like that. And really pushed me into talking about weight loss. And I'm sorry but I hate weight loss. It's not ... I mean I don't feel like I'm someone who's like ... I'm fit but I don't have this ripped body, and I just hate the before and after photos of [crosstalk 00:17:17]

Christine: Yeah.

Kendra Perry: I feel like you attract, not always, but depending on how you position yourself, but you often attract people who want to just lose weight, and they don't care about their health. And that's something I'm interested in. But she really kind of pushed me into that space, and then when I launched what I had to launch, it totally flopped. And I think it was because I was super out of alignment with what I actually was doing. And I was like, I don't even want to do this. What am I doing? So you do have to be wary of that. And I think when you think about ... you obviously need to know ... we talk so much about knowing who your ideal client is and figuring out who you're talking to. That's a big part of brand building. You need to be specific, you need to know who you're trying to attract.

Kendra Perry: But you also want to know how do you want people to feel when they come into contact with your business. Like with Christine, if I'm an entrepreneur, a CEO, I might get that luxury, high end feel, and maybe that's what you want people to feel. And when people come to my business, they might feel inspired to go climb a mountain or they feel like, get this nature-y feel. You want them to have a feeling about your business, and that's ...

Christine: Great.

Kendra Perry: That's great.

Christine: No, I totally agree. I agree. And it's also, yes, for me I think if you're authentic, you will automatically attract the right clients. Like some will just Google, they find your website, and they schedule a call with you and they have no clue what you actually do. But I find the hardcore fans, usually they take some time, they stalk you for a while, and then they get in touch. And you have this perfect client-coach, expert, whatever dynamic. And they are ready then to spend money with you because they trust you, because you never lie, and because you're just authentic. And if you screw up, you screw up, and it's fine. And they know that it's human and that's it.

Christine: And I personally, I also, it's really funny because I worked with someone, and I admire her still, she's amazing. But in the beginning, three years ago, her branding was very subtle, and she was no make up or just tiny bits, and it was just, I loved it. Because at the time, I don't know if you remember, everyone had this gold written font and it was just about boss babe and personal glam, six figure, seven figures. There was gold everywhere and everyone was wearing these business dresses and big hair on the beach, that kind of thing. And she was just ... she had a black dress, she was very sober, and it was all about what she was saying. Super intelligent thing. I loved it because she was different because that's the way she was.

Christine: Now she has one of these photographers that I know shooting a lot of people who are pretty in in the industry right now, and they all look the same. And it's all over the top glitz and glam. And it's like everyone is one a unicorn boat, float thing. And I'm just like, I cannot have it with the graffiti in the background. Everyone looks the same now and it's not high end. It's just like an overblown ego. It's not the same. Development, becoming more confident, does not mean that your ego is taking over. I think that's also important to keep in mind.

Kendra Perry: Yeah. Yeah. I think that's really important to keep in mind. You really want to be true to yourself. It's not the easiest thing to do but it's easier in the long run because in the long run you're just yourself. You're not trying to develop this persona of someone who you aren't. I'm sure we've all met people in our life who we felt were fake. And we felt like they were hiding something or they weren't being their true selves, and something was off. And we didn't want to hang out with those people. So you don't want to be that person to your audience, right?

Kendra Perry: And I have a little list here because I think journaling can be really helpful. I think you can sit down and really consider this, but I have some questions you can ask yourself when you're journaling. And the first one is what are you unique qualities and strengths? We all have them, we all have unique parts about our personalities. We all have unique strengths. And if that's a hard question for you to answer, like I said, talk to your friends and family. Sit down with your bestie. They might help you see a side of you that maybe is less obvious to yourself.

Kendra Perry: What are five words that your friends would use to describe you? Again, you can talk to your friends, right? What are your core values? What do you stand for in your business? How do people benefit from working with you? And how do you want people to feel after they come into contact with your business?

Kendra Perry: Really, really think about this. Do some journaling. And you might have some big aha moments. Because the truth is we all are unique, individual people. And these days people don't want the cookie cutter approach. They don't want some monotone practitioner in front of a camera being super professional, with no emotion and no personality. People are not going to watch that video.

Kendra Perry: If you're someone who likes to crack inappropriate jokes, crack inappropriate jokes. If you like to say fuck, say fuck. I say it all the time and it's honestly, it can be very polarizing. I mean people hate me for it. I get people ... it's the most common thing that people write to me and tell me to watch my mouth and I have a dirty mouth. But I don't care. If they hung out with me in person they would probably be like, "This girl swears to much and I don't want to hang out with her." Whatever, right? It's okay. There's someone else out there for them. It's not me and it doesn't need to be.

Christine: Perfect. I totally agree.

Kendra Perry: We like to say fuck.

Christine: A lot. And it's a great thing. I don't know why people are so offended. It's super great. Awesome.

Christine: But there was something else I wanted to say and it slipped my mind so let's continue because I-

Kendra Perry: Okay. Well I wanted to talk a little bit about Instagram because we really love Instagram right now. And honestly, in terms of a social media platform I do think it's probably one of the best ones to build a personal brand. It's very visual. There's a lot of ways you can share content. You can post in your feed, you can do Instagram stories, you can do IGTV, you can do Instagram live. Literally, there's four different ways to interact on Instagram, and they're all different ways to show your personalities. But I have some crazy pet peeves when it comes to Instagram. And I wanted to just talk about this quickly.

Kendra Perry: So you can do an experiment. Click on the people who you're following or people who are following you. And scroll down and look at the accounts that you're most likely to want to click into and learn more about. I almost guarantee it's not someone who's using a logo as their image, their profile picture. When I see a logo, I don't want to click into that at all. There's nothing. There's no human connection. I have no connection to a graphic or a logo. But when I see a cool picture of someone, I'm like, "Ooo, what does that chick do? Oh what does that dude do?" So I think-

Christine: Exactly. I mean the exception to the rule is obviously if you have a product or if you are like Mont Blanc of something like that, sure, use your logo. But let's talk about us people. Don't use your logo. Who cares?

Kendra Perry: Nobody cares about your logo and there's no connection there. Even if our Instagram handle or your business name is not your name, you are still your brand. So you have to have a photo there.

Kendra Perry: And then next of all your name, if your handle is like "climbtothetopwellness", I don't know, that's a weird business.

Christine: Or "sleeplikeabus".

Kendra Perry: Yeah, or "sleeplikeabus". You are still your brand so your name has to be somewhere in your bio. Because just think of it this way, imagine you have a logo and your names not in your bio. And then you DM somebody, like an ideal client to try to connect. They're going to be like ...

Christine: Who's that?

Kendra Perry: They're not going to follow you. You're not even a human.

Kendra Perry: And then the other thing is maybe I scroll down your feed and you don't even show up anywhere on your feed. There's no photos of you.

Christine: I hate that. I cannot stand it. These meme things, where people only put their memes of things. No. I would never hire you. I don't know who you are. I don't see you. I only see memes. I only see quotes, but who are you? It just tells me that your self-confidence is down the toilet, why would I want to learn from you? Sorry.

Kendra Perry: Yeah. Like you, honestly, I think like every second photo ...

Christine: It is. It's my strategy.

Kendra Perry: [crosstalk 00:25:42] I see you. And I mean it actually makes your Instagram look really visual, when you just do like photo of you, and then maybe you can do your quote or your meme, something with like white space.

Christine: Exactly. Or whatever.

Kendra Perry: You could literally show up everyday on your feed. And I know it feels very narcissistic, but it's actually what people want from you. Those photos are going to do better, so from an Instagram perspective, you need to make it clear who you are. People need to go to your thing and see your photo and see your name. And then obviously see what they do, but I feel like I'm like a broken record. I've talked about this so much and I just see it so much. Like people who [crosstalk 00:26:18] health coaching, advice and marketing. And I'm just like, oh my god, I go on your profile [crosstalk 00:26:26] there, your photo's not there. You just have a list of all the schools you went to and your certifications.

Christine: Nobody cares.

Kendra Perry: Nobody cares.

Christine: Agreed. And you're much more searchable. So when people ask me how do I find you on Instagram, I tell them you can either look for "Christine Hansen" because my name is "Christine Hansen Sleep Expert", or you can look for "sleeplikeabus" because that's my handle. So you will find me whatever you type, which is amazing. So people do it. Use your name. I would suggest use your name and your business title. And just decide is your name going to be your business name or is your handle going to be whatever. But that way you're searchable twice, which is super cool.

Christine: The other thing is if you do want your credentials, just line a couple and then say dot, dot, dot. Like for example in my bio, I say that I've been featured in National Geographic books, et cetera. So even I have this little space available, I just do dot, dot, dot, but it's really, really helpful. Then a greet, use your personal picture and a quote or a blog or something like that.

Christine: And here's another tip, what I do ... because I use a personal picture every second day during the week. And Kendra and I did this for our pictures, whenever we go traveling, we go to Airbnb Experiences and book a photo shoot. And they're usually around 80 bucks, and you get 20 to 25 pictures is the norm, I think. And you get great pictures, like really great photographers out there. And they're perfect for Instagram and drop posts and so forth. So it's not expensive. It doesn't break the bank. And you can constantly feed fresh photos into your feed. It's Instagram, people are there because it's a visual platform, get over yourself.

Kendra Perry: Take good photos, right? Yeah, we started doing that ... I don't know, not that long ago. But our branch shoot that we did for the podcast, we just did it in San Diego on the beach with this photographer who seemed really introverted and not confident. And I was like, "Oh I don't know how this is going to go." But they were great photos. Really, really. And tons of them, right?

Christine: Exactly.

Kendra Perry: And it cost us like a hundred bucks or something.

Christine: Not even. Not even. And it doesn't even need to be ... like I like to have a photographer do photos because I don't know who else I would ask all the time, but if you go to see celebrities, like Reese Witherspoon, she does have some of her old photos, that were new ones, but she had a lot of photos that friends took with their iPhones, of her. Obviously she knows how to pose but it just goes to show you don't always need the professional angle. If you have someone, I don't know, a boyfriend or just a friend you hang out with, or a partner or whatever, or just a good friend, and where ever you are, you ask them can you take a picture of me, don't feel uncomfortable about it. Just say it's for my job. You can even do it with your iPhone or whatever smart phone you have. The camera's are so good nowadays.

Kendra Perry: They're so good.

Christine: The portrait mode, hello.

Kendra Perry: Hello portrait mode.

Christine: How much you can do, it's crazy.

Kendra Perry: It's such a good point because if you go on my feed, there's some photos on there that are processional, but there's a lot of photos that are literally just taken with my Google phone or my boyfriend's Google phone, and it's a really good, high quality camera. Now I also have a little tripod for my phone, so when I go places, I might just put on the timer and get a quick photo of me doing something. Actually, I posted an Instagram post on the editing eps that I use, but maybe that would be a good episode for an upcoming Biz Bomb episode, because I have like two apps that I pull things into that will take a photo that's pretty average, and I have my pre-set, and then I clean up my complexion and I clean up the colors, and suddenly it's a professional photo. It doesn't need to be a big deal. And in the end even selfies are better than not being on your feed.

Christine: Absolutely. And I would advocate that you have some kind of structure on your feed, and anything that you want to throw out there is your stories. That's how I handle it. So if I take a crazy selfie or just some snap shots from when I'm out and about, I still evaluate what I put into my stories, it's always personal. Usually it's my personal life and just showing ... because again it's part of my brand. When I travel first class it's part of my brand. It's who I am, it's what I sell. But also when I'm in the bathtub with my new kittens, that's also kind of who I am.

Christine: And you use it even more for marketing. I haven't done it quite as much yet. So there's so much wiggle room, as long as you stay true to yourself. So use gifs that you would usually use, use emojis that you would usually use. The fonts, there are so many different ones that you can use. They all have pros and cons I find, but use colors that you would use, that you find pretty. Just use things that you find attractive and I find that you are already on brand.

Kendra Perry: Yeah, and it's a good point with Instagram Stories because when it comes to personal branding, and I think we're both on board with this Christine, is that we really think you need to use video to build a brand, right?

Christine: My god yes.

Kendra Perry: It's really hard to push out your personality on a blog post, on social media posts.

Christine: Unless you're a super good writer.

Kendra Perry: Unless you're the most amazing writer in the world.

Christine: But even then people get sick of that.

Kendra Perry: They want to see you, right?

Christine: Exactly. And they combine it. I'm a huge [Laura Bell Grey 00:31:56] fan. I worked with her a couple of times. And her [inaudible 00:32:00] are amazing. They're full of her personality, and she just does it because she's amazingly talented. But even so, she still uses photos too. But she manages to ... she's so talented it's crazy. Not a lot of people are. Just don't consider yourself to be as talented I would say.

Kendra Perry: Yeah, and there's so many ways to share video content these days. And I think people get really uncomfortable and nervous about live video, but if you're not comfortable on life video, you can still share pre-recorded video. Instagram Stories is all pre-recorded video. IGTV, which is the biggest bang for your buck for engagement on Instagram right now, like seriously, it is the biggest bang for your buck. I'm getting like six times more engagement on my IGTV videos than I am on feed posts right now, and even Instagram Stories. Instagram really wants to push it. And it's a pre-recorded video, maximum 10 minutes. What a great amount of time to get super to the point but actually teach and educate people.

Christine: Exactly. And I expect that your Instagram feed is going to be like your mini-website and your IGTV is what Instagram is pushing for, like I really think that's video and so forth.

Christine: And a little trick that I have because I never expect to actually watch or listen to whenever I do a video or a podcast, so whenever they do I'm super surprised and that's not a lie. Because I just assume, and Kendra and I are just recording this, but I actually don't ... well I do believe it, I know it's true, but I never have, in the back of my head, that you guys will actually watch all of [inaudible 00:33:41]. So whenever I speak with you I'm just like, "Oh god this is so embarrassing, you actually listen?" It's really weird, so I kind of bubble myself into that world and that's how it works for me. But I think that's something you could do. Just assume nobody's ever going to watch it.

Kendra Perry: I mean in the end, especially when you're new, probably not a lot of people are going to be watching it anyways. And I think it's really important, with video, like it's not something that we both came into the world being good at. If you go back, I'm sure, and look at Christine's early videos or my early Facebook lives, it's like not the same person because I was not comfortable. The first time I went live on video was Periscope when that used to be a thing.

Christine: Oh my god, it was so embarrassing.

Kendra Perry: I know, I hated it because I go live on this video. I'm like, been nervous all day. I've created this whole script. I'm so, so, so nervous. And then all I'm getting is comments being like, "Nice pitch, show your boobs."

Christine: Show your boobs. Yes.

Kendra Perry: And I'm like what is happening, what is happening? I'm trying to talk about adrenal fatigue, what's happening? I don't know why all the perverts were on Periscope, but that's where they hung out.

Christine: Yeah, agreed.

Kendra Perry: Luckily you don't have to deal with that on Facebook live. But I think it's something that you will never be good at unless you do it consistently. You've got to do it all the time. And eventually ... like I never would have thought that I could just hop onto live video with no preparation and just talk about a subject at length. I never would have thought I would do that, but now I can, because I've probably put out 300 live videos at this point in my career, right?

Christine: Yes. Yes. And also again, if I look at my first videos, I feel comfortable with it, it's because I always taught and always done things like that, but I wasn't myself in the beginning. I still have straightened hair and all kinds of bullshit. But now you just see me with bed hair.

Kendra Perry: I feel like you're in your bed when you record at the time.

Christine: I am actually. I actually am. And you'll see my headboard or I'm in my hotel room and I just rolled out of bed. And it's not even having make up on. And it doesn't matter. And funny enough, I sometimes feel that the videos I shoot off location, so without studio lights and here in my office, but I do spontaneously at an airport or in my hotel room, so very often those will get the most resonance. So mix it up. Keep it professional but also don't be afraid to just impromptu shoot a video. Because you can, you have your phone with you. There's nothing else you need.

Kendra Perry: Yeah, absolutely. And something also that's kind of cool too, is I think YouTube just introduced vertical video. So if you're making an IGTV video, with is just going to be vertical, like you holding your phone, you can actually just upload it to YouTube as well, straight from a YouTube app on your phone. So that's something they just rolled out. So repurposed content, right, is a really good way to ...

Christine: Totally.

Kendra Perry: Hope I won't go crazy.

Christine: Exactly. So watch out or listen to our episode with Jamie Palmer, I think it's the second or third episode on our podcast ever. It's still one of my favorites. And [inaudible 00:36:47] and I work with Jamie actually.

Kendra Perry: Yeah, we do. We love Jamie.

Christine: We love her. But its changed both of our businesses tremendously. So go and have a look at that. When you know who you are, when your branding is ready, then go and have a look at that.

Kendra Perry: Yeah, and especially when you're new. I know it's easy to compare yourself to other people, like if you go check out, like my business you'll see that I'm on all the social media platforms, but I also have a team. I have a team of people who does that. When you're new and starting out, you can't make specific content for every platform. You need to choose one platform that you know that's where your ideal client is hanging out, and maybe it's a platform that you actually enjoy using, and then just try to make one piece of content each week, and then you repurpose, right? And you put it out on other platforms. But this is a little bit off topic, but it's also [crosstalk 00:37:32].

Christine: The only other thing also that I want to say, and you just said it, that don't try to be like other people, is that sometimes people say look at what other people do in your industry. And I would actually highly encourage you against that. Because you are different. And for example, I don't have a problem training people at what I do and become a member of my team, because I know that even if five of us do exactly the same thing, and they are going to, whoever the potential client is, is going to resonate with someone different. And I see it because one of mentees just used my tagline. And I told her she could use part of it, not all of it. But it doesn't actually suit here. Because when you talk to her, she isn't like that. So whenever I work with my mentees, although we use the same structure and we have the same business, they all have a different person they are drawn to and that they naturally connect with.

Christine: And I ask them that, you know? "Who are the people who usually open up to you? Who are the people that just when you are in a room with people, who you just suddenly sit somewhere, offside, having a beer with and just a great conversation. Who are they?" Those are the people who are you, who you naturally resonate with. So don't use copy from someone else's website. Even if you just change it a little bit. It's not you. Whenever you're you, it's your brand, it's your voice, it's your aesthetic. The same as I find some very sleek fonts very nice, whereas others are more for the brushstroke kind of thing. You need to go with what belongs to you, what you would wear if you could put it on. And if you had a fashion show to go to to represent you, what would you feel most comfortable in, that's you.

Kendra Perry: Yeah, I agree.

Christine: But don't copy it, it's not going to work.

Kendra Perry: Yeah, and I think people, you want to write your copy and write your social media posts exactly like you would talk. How would you actually talk? If you were just going to write that social media post, no one's going to see it as a journal entry, like what would it actually look like. And I think the biggest compliment you can get is when someone's like, "I already feel like I know you." I get that with my strategy sessions with the coaches, and they're like, "I feel like I already know you." They don't realize it but that's the best compliment that anyone can give me because that means that what I'm doing is working, right?

Christine: Exactly. Exactly. And don't hide yourself. Don't pretend to be anything that you're not. And I noticed it a lot recently, the latest podcast interviews that I've done, and I've done quite a few in the last two to three months. People love them. And it's not me just saying that. I literally had three people get back to me yesterday about three different podcast interviews, and saying, "This was such a great episode." And it's episodes where I talk about how I changed, how, yes, my marriage ended. But also how I made money, the crosses I had to go through, the ugly sides, but also everything I believe in, which might be sometimes uncomfortable. And just being, not vulnerability alert, blah, blah, blah, but just like I'm not better than you just because sometimes things were hard, this is just what it's like. I'm being very honest.

Christine: And I think that's the other thing, when you're journaling or whenever something triggers you, always ask yourself am I honest right here? Honesty is the most important word that you can have in your life. I honestly ... I honestly believe that. I really think so.

Kendra Perry: Yeah. I mean I love that. Honesty. It's so true. Like we said, it doesn't happen overnight. It's not like you're just going to listen to this episode and know exactly what to do. It's going to be a work in process. You're going to make some mistakes. You're going to have to switch things and change things and revamp things. It's always a work in progress, but in the end just don't try to be who you think you should be, just be you. Just be who you are, exactly how you would in everyday life.

Christine: Agreed. And I just want to do a little bonus thing here. I just really quickly want to share the people and the tools that helped me the most. And you can do too, Kendra.

Kendra Perry: Sure.

Christine: But one thing that I'm sharing all the time, listen to my podcast interviews, is Tapping Into Wealth, by Margaret Lynch. If you want to be comfortable with money and selling yourself, then I've worked with a couple of different coaches. But one that I'm still working with regularly is [Halinda 00:42:04] Moors, so Moors M-O-O-R-S. She's my energy, quantum field kind of person. I still don't know how it works exactly, but it works. I also work with Heather Jones, she's an EFT practitioner that really helped. I worked with Amber Dugger, my financial coach.

Kendra Perry: We had her on the podcast. She's on like a [inaudible 00:42:22] episode.

Christine: She's amazing.

Kendra Perry: Check it out.

Christine: Check it out. [Katimonstas 00:42:26] Peters is also ... she's a witch, really. She's amazing. Check it out. She's fantastic, helped me a lot. So I work with [Meryl Creeksman 00:42:36]. She's changed her business so she doesn't offer the same package that I used to do. And then those were I think, personal development wise, huge. And also Doctor Drema Dial. She's a psychologist and she's helped me a lot too. And [Robin Collette 00:42:53]. So you can see I work and get help from a lot of different people. But you meet people when you're supposed to meet them. And they've helped me tremendously over the last time. And you cannot do it alone. I think that's the message. And I would have saved so much money if I had worked, well more, on my own personal development earlier.

Kendra Perry: I agree.

Christine: And it never stops.

Kendra Perry: It never stops. Yeah like I always talk about having three counselors. For talk therapy, I see someone for trauma release, and then me and my partner see a couples counselor even though our relationship is great, because we work on prevention, right? And just continually learn how to better communicate with each other. But the counseling has been a big thing for me because you do get triggered in your business. It will bring out all your biggest insecurities. Every time I launch something, I'm still that girl in high school who's wondering if anyone's going to show up to my party, right?

Christine: I know because you tell me and it's adorable. And I'm like, "Kendra, chill." Is anyone going to show up to my party?

Kendra Perry: I know. It's funny but I get triggered from high school because I was bullied, I had really toxic female friends in my life. I've actually seen some of that, those feelings in high school come up recently in my business, especially in relation to internet trolls. That's something I've been dealing within my business recently. So I called up my counselor and I was like, "I'm ready to deal with the high school shit. Let's go four sessions and let's go for it." I don't want some stranger on the internet who hates their life, who just wants to spew negativity at me, affect me the way that it affects me. It really affects me and it has nothing to do with me. So I can tell that it's triggering high school Kendra.

Christine: Exactly. And then you cry, it's hard, it sucks, you're sick for two days, and then you get through it.

Kendra Perry: That's right. And you learn to recognize it. Those feelings are still going to come up, you're still going to feel that triggering sensation, but when you do the personal work and you actually grow and start to heal, you're able to step back from it and be like, "Okay, that's triggering me. Why is that triggering me? Okay cool. These are the tools that I have so that I don't go into fight or flight."

Christine: Exactly. And that's when you show up authentically, fearlessly, genuinely, honestly, and that, ladies and gentlemen, is your brand.

Christine: All right. Juicy, juicy stuff girl. Now I have like goosebumps all over.

Christine: I know. [crosstalk 00:45:35] I hope they can't see the little sweat things on my noose.

Kendra Perry: I'm glad everyone can't see my boob sweat.

Christine: My god. No I like, I have the weirdest sweat spot, it's under my lip and on my nose. Like I swear all the glands are on my nose.

Kendra Perry: I get the sweat mustache.

Kendra Perry: All right guys, thank you so much for putting up with us as always. We're always completely blown away when you want to hang out with us. It's like so weird. But what I am going to say? Oh yeah, if you like this episode and you are an Instagram user, screenshot this episode on Instagram, share it to your stories, and tell us your biggest take home. And we will share your stories, to our story, because we love Instagram, and we love Instagram Stories. And if you don't use Instagram, just go give us a five star review on iTunes. No big deal, no big deal. [inaudible 00:46:27]

Christine: It would make us very, very happy.

Kendra Perry: Yeah it will. And we'll read it on air.

Christine: Yes, yes. Absolutely. All right. Have a great time every one and we'll talk to you in two weeks.

It’s rare these days to come up with an original topic to create content on. You should be posting new content one or two times a week…that’s at least 52 topics a year! While that sounds daunting, Christine has 4 tips to create and find content topics easily.

After each session with her clients, Christine will jot down any and all questions her clients asked. Though some questions may seem obvious to you, like “how can I sleep better?” the average person may not know and typically if one client asks, there are 5 other clients asking the exact same question! So use that to your advantage and create content based on what they are asking about.

If your clients are aren’t asking the questions, then find out what people are searching on the web! You can do this by typing in your topic or keyword into Google search and see what comes up. By typing in “how” and “sleep”, you’ll find many questions that people are looking to solve. Like “how to sleep fast” and “how much melatonin for sleep”. Sometimes it doesn’t always give you what you’re looking for….“how do fish sleep” won’t be a topic we wil be covering any time soon.

Answerthepublic.com is also another place you can find out what people are asking. Again, you can enter your topic, like sleep, and it will give you two different ways of looking at the questions. One's it's a graphic map outlining all the what, why, and how’s, or you can few the same questions in the Data field which lists them. And if you scroll to the very bottom, you’ll find related searches based on your keyword. You will find more content ideas that you ever needed on this site!

Lastly, another way to find content topics is through your continuing education. Whenever you learn something new whether it’s through a webinar, conference or a course you’re taking, blog about it! Share what you learned and provide your insights…like we did after the Social Media Marketing World Conference.

With these 4 tips, you. should be off to the race with content topics!

Hey everyone, and welcome to this episode of the 360 Biz Bomb Advice. And today I'm going to talk about how to find ideas for content creation. So, if you're like me, you at least try to promote content once or twice a week. And sometimes it feels like we've spoken about things over, and over, and over again.

So here's a couple of things that I do, in order to find new content. Number one, is after each client session, I take quick notes about the questions that they ask. And sometimes, I find it obvious, but it isn't. So, even the really obvious questions for me, I write them down, and very often they ask the same questions over and over again. And if you count it, it's only 56 topics a year. So, in the second year, don't hesitate to do a new video and new update on the same content. Nobody's going to go through all your blog or not many people will, and you will have learned new things that you can use, new anecdotes and stories. So that's one.

The other thing is that you can go use Google keyword search and just use your term and see what else comes up and what people look for. You can actually just use your Google search bar and type in Sleep and it will give you suggestions. And there's another other one, and I actually need you to look it up because I always get it wrong. And I think it's called Answer the Public. Answer the Public, there it is. And if you go to that, it is fascinating. It has a really old grumpy man when you arrive. And you type in your search terms of the meat with your sleep, and then you get two different ways of looking at the data. One's it's a graphic. And then you have on the right there's a tab that's called Data, and it will give you all the questions that people are looking for, and you will have more content than you will ever need.

So, that's what I do for my content research, listening to people. I also buy magazines sometimes related to my topic. And, when I do continuous education, whenever I've just learned something, I will do a blog about it. So last time I did something on Gabba, for example, that was just from the course that I took, and I was like, oh, this is so interesting, so I immediately recorded it and I shared it. So, use your knowledge, use the continuous education that you're doing, and bring it out to the people.

So, that was my little tidbit for today. I hope it was helpful, and I'll talk to you soon.

We were googley-eyed over today’s guest…the OG of online health marketing, Lori Kennedy! Lori is the founder and CEO of The Wellness Business Hub which provides professional training and personal development for health practitioners looking to build and grow their businesses online. In 2012 she started her online business, while still running her in person nutrition consulting. By 2014 she was able to close in person consult and focus solely on her online programs. Holy crap right?! How did she do it? Well you’re about to find out.

Obviously a lot has changed since 2012…let’s face it, with online marketing things change daily! So how does Lori keep up? As she put it, the tactics change, but the fundamentals don't. For example, tactics could be what was webinars but are now FB live. The fundamentals of understanding the principles of client attraction and conversion and how to actually sell doesn’t change. And this also includes the evolution of personal brand. Back in Lori’s day (which makes her sound so old but she still a young duck), it was all about posting a blog a day to get your name out there. But now, it’s about showing up and being present on your social platforms – engaging with your followers and being a leader to your tribe. people in the health & wellness industry don't necessarily understand how to being a persona or a brand, they're used to teaching and providing recipes, and doing only that doesn't work in 2019.

Lori is also an expert on launching health & wellness programs and the first thing that needs to be done before anything is launched is to beta test the crap out of it! A beta test should have a minimum of 5 people, whether you’re doing a group program on one on one coaching. By doing a beta test first, you not only have testimonials from those clients for when you launch your full program, but you can make tweaks to what they liked, didn’t like and improve it.

In this episode, we talk about the benefits of beta testing, how mindset plays a role on how you run your business (even making 5 or 6 figures in a successful business, there are still things that trigger you), and the steps you need to take to create a successful online wellness course.

In addition to being the founder and CEO of The Wellness Business Hub, Lori is also a mom, and lover of all things related to coffee. Lori’s two foundational programs The Wellness Business Academy and The 10K Success System are growing a powerful community of health leaders who are transforming the way healthcare is done all over the world. She is also the host of The Business of Becoming Podcast for entrepreneurs who want to build the business and life of their dreams… all on their own terms.

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TRANSCRIPTS

Christine: Hello everyone, and welcome to this brand new wonderful episode of the 360 Health Biz Podcast. And today it's a Getty because you have Kendra Perry, my wonderful co hostess with the mostess.

Kendra Perry: Thank you.

Christine: And my humble self, Christine. And we match again, I don't know why, but you have to watch us on YouTube. It's the funniest thing in the world. Like, recently we just seem to have this dress for success amazing vibe. I don't know.

Kendra Perry: How did we both choose orange and black, like random colors, a color I never wear.

Christine: I know. [crosstalk 00:00:31] It's super weird. I don't know. I'm watching Mad Men so maybe I'm inspired by the 70s or something like that, I don't know. But today we have ... Oh, actually Lori is in the same vibe as well. We have-

Lori Kennedy: Just going to say, we all kind of are matchy matchy.

Christine: ... It's super true. Like, look at this stunning [inaudible 00:00:48] I feel. So let me introduce you to this fantastic guest of ours. You will learn so much in this episode. It will ... Seriously, your brain is going to explode. So Lori Kennedy is the founder and the CEO of the Wellness Business Hub, love that actually, which provides professional training and personal development for health practitioners looking to build and grow their businesses online. Two things that I can just say you have to have. If you just do one or the other, it's not going to work.

Christine: She's also a mom and a lover of all things related to coffee. Lori's two foundational programs, the Wellness Business Academy and the 10K Success System are growing a powerful business, a powerful community of health leaders who are transforming the way healthcare is done all over the world. She's also the host of the Business of Becoming Podcast for entrepreneurs who want to build a business and life of their dreams all on their own terms. And obviously, we are big fans of that. So sort of liked Lori to welcome you today and to help us with our listeners and to basically guide, teach us, let us know all your goodies that you have stored in your brain.

Lori Kennedy: Thank you for having me.

Christine: So for all of you, just very quickly, you can obviously catch the video on your audio, but also on YouTube if you want to see it, and on our website, which is 360healthbizpodcast.com. So fly over there and then Kendra, I'm going to give you the floor for our first questions that we're going to bombard Lori with.

Kendra Perry: Yeah. Well, first of all, I would love to know just a quick version of your story, because I know you used to be a health coach and then you transitioned over to supporting health coaches. So can you tell us a little bit about, yeah, where you got started and how that transition happened just for our members who don't know you.

Lori Kennedy: Totally. I was actually a registered holistic nutritionist. And I've always been in the health industry. So I started as a personal trainer. I got my first PT certification in 1999 through the YMCA. I've never had a proper corporate job, so the nine to five thing wasn't really ever sort of in the cards for me. And I did personal training for a long time. I was part of a team, this was I guess my only sort of proper job. I was part of a team, a startup team for a 20,000 square foot health and fitness facility.

Lori Kennedy: And so because of my background, I was a gymnastics coach, and I was a competitive dancer and I was a camp counselor. I was in charge of the teen section. I was given this budget at 24 years old to go and outfit this massive section and create all of the programming for it and all of that. So that was really my foray, and to understanding what it was to be an entrepreneur, because there were two men who started this big facility. And during that time I was also still training and I was doing a lot of things and I decided to go back to school to become a registered holistic nutritionist, this was 2007.

Lori Kennedy: And from there it just sort of evolved. My career evolved. I had a full time practice for seven years that I closed at the end of 2014. I had my signature program called Wow! Weight Loss that ended up running in nine different locations, and I had licensed it out to dozens of health practitioners across Canada. And just very naturally, very organically found my way onto the internet, because I had two small children and I really wanted financial independence.

Lori Kennedy: I really wanted to have a bigger impact. I knew that I was made for more. I knew that having this one type of business wasn't going to be the end game for me. And so I started to take it online in 2012 and I did both at the same time. So I ran my full time nutrition practice while I was growing my online business, which is basically two full time jobs, plus I had two more kids. And I was able to make enough money at the end of 2014 to be able to close my nutrition practice. And so for me, the goal was I had to make 10% more than what I know I needed three consecutive months in a row.

Lori Kennedy: Because if I was able to do it three consecutive months in a row, that meant that I actually knew what I was doing, it wasn't random and I could just continue that. And so when that happened, that was my sort of exit plan from my nutrition. It took me about six months to probably end up closing it. And so since end of 2014, beginning of 2015, we've been growing this hub on the internet and servicing tens of thousands of practitioners and coaches and Fit Pros literally from all over the world.

Kendra Perry: That's amazing. And so I did the same. I did the Canadian school of natural nutrition as well. I did that same program and I would love to know what is your opinion on the business model that they teach in that program and maybe similar programs?

Lori Kennedy: So I think regardless of where you went to school, the school, the certification, their purpose isn't to teach you business. Their purpose is to give you the professional education that gives you a beginner skill set to start working with clients. Because the world that we now live in changes so frequently, I don't even think it would be possible for them-

Kendra Perry: But to the point.

Lori Kennedy: ... to really keep up with. And that's also not their purpose. It's like if you think about it from the perspective of a doctor. Yes, doctors have to have private practices, but imagine if half of the doctors education was in business versus in doctoring, right? Like, in all of the things that they needed. It's the same thing with us. I think anything ... Could curriculum be improved? Of course it could, but that's not their area of expertise. They teach what they know and what they know is the key fundamentals of the mind, body, spirit of holistically improving health.

Lori Kennedy: And so I think where the breakdown is, isn't so much in the professional institutions, it's in the lack of understanding that this is one aspect that is required to be successful. I think that's where the breakdown is, is I know for myself, when I went to do my PT certifications, when I went to go do my registered holistic nutrition designation, under no circumstances was I even aware at all that I was a business owner, that I was starting a company, that I had to do all of the things, learn all of the skills that would contribute to my success.

Lori Kennedy: I was just obsessed with figuring out the body and learning nutrition and geeking out on research. And it never occurred to me even after I graduated, even after I rented a space in a Wellness clinic. It took me over a year to figure out, "Oh, there is books on selling that I can read from the library." Like, what's marketing? I had a brochure and I ran free talks that my mom and her friends came to. It didn't occur to me at all that I also had to acquire the same level of skill set, if not greater, for business. So I think that's perhaps where the breakdown is, is that people going into these ...

Lori Kennedy: I think the one thing that we all have in common regardless of our designation, is that we come from a place of service first. So whether that's wanting to improve the quality of your own health or your family's health or your friends' health or whatever that may be, most of us who become health professionals do it because we want to be of service to ourselves or others. We do it because we're nerds and we geek out on this stuff and we like it, and it's interesting and we want to improve the quality of our health. And so we don't necessarily go into it thinking, "I'm going to do this as a business. I'm an entrepreneur. I better go and acquire skills." It's an afterthought, and I think that's where the breakdown is.

Christine: Yeah, very often. I don't entirely agree because that wasn't for me, it's always kind of different for another person. I really saw my niche and I was like, "I want to be an entrepreneur, and this is my niche where I want to go." And so it's a little bit different, but I do agree that 99% of the time it's exactly the kind of person or the journey that people take that are in the health industry. I'm just a greedy bitch, you know that.

Christine: It's just [inaudible 00:10:31]. But I mean you have got something of everything, and I do ... What is fascinating to me is that when you started, because I cannot imagine. Like, you've witnessed this whole transformation. And I just had a conversation with someone yesterday who was talking to me about all of these webinars they're trying to do, and I was like, "Well, that's very much 2017," which an internet peak is years ago, it's like eons ago. So when you started, I cannot even imagine what the trend was at the time.

Kendra Perry: Well, like, 2012 you're like the original gangster.

Lori Kennedy: Yes, that was like-

Kendra Perry: It's like OG in the house. Right? I'm like, "Jesus, was the internet around in 2012?"

Christine: I don't even know what happened 2012 but it's like, I mean, things must changed so much. Can you remember one thing that was super hot back then and that now is just cringe?

Lori Kennedy: You know what's really interesting about that? Tactics change, but the fundamentals don't. Right? And so the tactic of let's say webinar, which now the tactic would be Facebook Live, let's just say. Right? Webinars still work 100%, I'll just say that. They totally work when they're done right. But the tactics change, but the actual underlying principles of why you're using the tactic that hasn't changed, because business is business, marketing is marketing, it's been around. Direct response marketing and all of that good stuff has been around for how long, right?

Christine: Ever.

Lori Kennedy: I think it's interesting to differentiate between the tactics that change every six months and being able to quickly pivot when the tactic changes because you understand that those underlying fundamentals, you understand the principles of client attraction and nurturing, and conversion and how to actually sell. So whether you're doing a live or a webinar or from the stage, the framework of what you're saying is the same, it's just the tactic changes. So one of the things that was super easy back in the day was blogging. It was ... I mean, you put up a blog and people saw it, right? People also read it, right?

Kendra Perry: Your like, "What? People saw my blog?" Freeze.

Lori Kennedy: They saw the blogs, and people read the blogs and people commented on the blogs.

Kendra Perry: What?

Lori Kennedy: And you didn't need all of this promotion to derive eyeballs to the blog. It just, it was there. And I remember like I've written, I don't even know how many blogs. I mean, I've been blogging since 2010, so for nine years. And there was years where I put out content every single day.

Kendra Perry: Oh my God.

Lori Kennedy: And that's because that's how you got eyeballs, right? Where now, people put out content every single day on Instagram or in a Facebook group. But here's the sort of clincher is if you don't understand how to write for engagement, for attraction, the blog wouldn't have worked back then and the posts don't work now. Right? So it's not so ... And I feel like this is also a mistake that most people make is they're copying the tactics because they see other people doing it and they don't actually understand the framework of how to use Instagram or how to use the Facebook group or how to even blog. Right?

Lori Kennedy: That it would actually get an ROI on your time. Meaning people would either comment or they would do an action from the blog. Right? And I think that's sort of ... It's for sure been so interesting to see the evolution of being a personal brand. You didn't need to be a personal brand back in 2011. You didn't even need to be a brand back in 2015, you didn't need to be. You could still be the professional. Now it's very different. Now people are like, "What color of underwear are you wearing?" And not like a common comment. It's different. It's totally different now with the evolution of Stories.

Lori Kennedy: I remember when Stories came out. I remember when Facebook Live came out. I remember, and it didn't exist. And to some degree I think because also, not all of us, I'm generalizing, but most people in our industry tend to be introverted, tend to be more highly sensitive, tend to be more private, and having to make that shift to becoming a celebrity, to becoming a persona, it's challenging for a lot of people. They don't understand how to communicate in that way, they're used to teaching. They're used to putting up tips and recipes, and that doesn't work in 2019. It worked-

Kendra Perry: Amen.

Lori Kennedy: ... 2015, and 2016 and 2017, but it doesn't work in 2019. To get engagement, to get that person to the next step where it would eventually result in them working with you.

Kendra Perry: Yeah. I mean, that's amazing and it's such a good point. It is a hard thing to do because you're literally trying to show your personality and be yourself to your phone, pretending that there is other people on the other side and you're just like, "How do I actually be myself, who I am in real life with the internet and with my phone?" And you're right, it's such a hard transition. Yeah.

Lori Kennedy: I agree.

Kendra Perry: I mean, I've struggled with it. I feel it, but I mean anything is practice. You just got to do it over, and over and over again.

Lori Kennedy: And I think too, it's not just being yourself, it's having this authoritative frame. Right? Because I think there is a difference in people commenting and just being yourself and giving away free information and showing up with this authoritative, funny, engaging frame or persona that people want to follow. That people aren't just consuming your content because you're funny, right? They're consuming it because you're making them feel a certain way and you're giving them permission to feel however they want to feel, but also you're doing it with the intention of making them slightly uncomfortable so that they want to take an action to move forward.

Lori Kennedy: I think there's a difference, right? People who are just personal brands, who are like celebrities, they can just show up as themselves because they make money from being in movies. Right? You have to almost be a little bit more direct responsy in our persona, right? Where it's not just, "Here is a smoothie," but talking about why you made the smoothie and how the smoothie affected your mood or your insulin or whatever, and sort of adding that little component in, in that, like authoritative leadership type of way, which is really hard for people.

Lori Kennedy: And I think perhaps the reason that it's been easier for me is because I studied direct response marketing and copywritings, I still do. Like, that's my go to. I know how to tell a story, I know how to frame it out. I know my ICA inside and out, and so when I'm sharing being freezing ass cold on the baseball field with my kid, I understand how that's affecting them. I'm not just sharing it because I'm like, "Oh, shit I didn't post today."

Christine: Yes, exactly.

Lori Kennedy: Right?

Christine: I find it really interesting because you kind of talk about yourself, which is very vulnerable, and still you need to circle back to your expertise in a way that is not like a clean break, but it needs to be smooth, it's not easy. Not to forget that the more eyeballs you get, you're like, "Yay," but at the same time you also have comments that aren't so nice. Everyone's a critic nowadays, and so it's like it's this ... I think it's very hard, but at the same time when you talk to people, you tell them that's kind of what you have to do.

Christine: And sometimes it's just really, really ... It's against everything some people in our industry, not stand for, but it's not their character at all. I think Kendra and I, we've managed it and for me it's very, really easy, I just forget someone is watching this. I forget someone is listening to this. I'm always surprised when people actually do.

Christine: But if you're actually aware of that, which probably most people do, how do you help them to take that step and to [inaudible 00:19:34] I mean, you don't always have to take pictures of yourself or videos or even having a graphic and writing a story to it. How do you motivate those who just really cringe and tired, who would never do it according to their comfort zone or their persona? How do you do that? How do you help them to overcome that?

Lori Kennedy: I think that it's a really good question and it's part of a much bigger conversation. In the sense that if we go back to sort of what we started talking about, that most people didn't go into this to be an authority, to be a celebrity, to be an expert, they just wanted to help people not have IBS symptoms or whatever. Right? And so accept that in 2019 this is what's required or an element of that is what is required. And if your intention is to have impact, if your intention is to play bigger and not necessarily because you're driven by money, but if your intention is impact and you want to help as many people as humanly possible, let's just say get rid of IBS symptoms, then what you asked me is part of the bigger question of how are we going to help you to feel comfortable being a leader?

Lori Kennedy: How are we going to help you to feel comfortable holding space for hundreds or thousands or tens of thousands of people putting you on a pedestal? How are we going to help you really step into that responsibility of being the authority of being the leader, of potentially being a boss to other people. It's part of this bigger question when I know for sure when I first started, the thought of having 12 people work for me never entered my mind. The thought of having tens of thousands of clients never entered my mind.

Lori Kennedy: The thought that people would be nervous to talk to me because they're feeling a certain way never entered my mind, but that's the truth of it now and it's a responsibility that I take very seriously. That requires me to do things on my end to make sure that I'm leveling up all the time to hold the space. And so it's part of that conversation of if you're not feeling comfortable putting forth your opinions and putting out content because you're scared that Aunt Sally is going to be annoyed by the fact that you're putting out really good content on your personal Facebook page.

Lori Kennedy: If you're nervous about pissing people off, if you're nervous about what other people are going to think of you, then that's where we need to work on that. We need to address this sort of root cause of that because it's a whole bigger conversation, right? When you start having 50 people or a hundred people, clients at a time, you got to get your self in order to be able to handle that. Nevermind like thousands of people, so-

Christine: That's why I love that you do personal development as well, because I think it's impossible to become successful if you don't do that.

Lori Kennedy: ... I totally agree. Again, I think people going into it don't have the awareness that it's their responsibility to do that kind of work. Right? They only think like, "I'm so interested in smoothies, and I'm so interested in IBS," and they don't think about it. And again, this is sort of the disconnect between the educational institutions and the understanding of what it really means to run a health focused business is that if you are not doing your own work, it's almost irresponsible to even see clients because you're putting your own shit in their world and that's not fair.

Kendra Perry: Yeah. And it ends up being really tough because if you don't do the work, you just get triggered all the time. You get triggered by the trolls-

Lori Kennedy: Everything triggers you.

Kendra Perry: ... you get triggered. It brings up all your insecurities and with me it still does. It's like when I'm launching something or doing a webinar, I'm still like that high school girl who's like, "Is anyone going to come to my party? [crosstalk 00:23:59]"

Lori Kennedy: No, but it's really true and I see it in my clients from the beginning and the clients who are now doing five figures a month. The difference in the things that trigger them. I still have things that trigger me. I do the work all the time. Right? I have a therapist. I belong to ... I invest in my ... I have a therapist and I have energy people.

Christine: You do?

Lori Kennedy: I see a trainer. I do my own work. We're getting ready to host a large event where I'm the host and there is things that we're doing that have me leveling up. That is causing some inner, like, who do I think I am type of things to come out and I'm having to do the work around that because I don't want to go into the event with that mindset, because that's not in service to the people that paid me money. That's not fair to them. Right? I need to hold space for hundreds of people in a contained environment. I need for four days.

Lori Kennedy: I need to do that work. Right? And so I think being able to look yourself in the mirror and say, and honor all of those ways in which doing an Instagram Story makes you uncomfortable, posting an opinion, putting your stake in the ground like I said before. Like, if you don't do this, I think it's irresponsible. That's a pretty opinionated thing to say. It's not the opinion, but I also have worked with tens of thousands of people and I sort of have the credibility to say that and also because I do with my own work.

Lori Kennedy: But I think it's getting really honest with yourself and it's also saying, "You know what? I have work to do," and honoring the work and honoring where you need to maybe improve some things. Maybe you do lack skills, which is a genuine reason for you to feel insecure. Right? You might actually lack skills, so go acquire the skills. Right? Don't just be upset that you don't have them, just go acquire them. Right? So it's that kind of stuff. It's acknowledging why these types of things make you really uncomfortable and then going and fixing it.

Kendra Perry: Yeah. I love the twist and the turn that this conversation has taken, because it's a really important conversation. But I do want to bring things back around to launching, because I know you are the launch queen and when we were originally talking about sort of the business model that maybe people think they are going to be doing when they come to school because like you said, there is a disconnect. They don't really know that there is all this other stuff they have to learn.

Kendra Perry: So I feel like a lot of people come out of school and they think they're going to run their business like a natural path, where they just like kind of put their sign out, they open up a business and people book these one off sessions. And I know for you, you really encourage people to create programs and group things. So can you just speak a little bit more to that?

Lori Kennedy: Yeah, totally. So in my opinion, and what we've seen is having some type of methodology that you become known for, like, this is your area of expertise. We call that a signature program. All a signature program is, it's a X module, step by step methodology that delivers a result. That methodology, in and of itself, is your ticket to freedom. Because when you have a methodology that delivers a specific result, the only way that you could come up with it is by identifying your ideal client to say, "Okay, I want to work with people who have IBS and this X module methodology at the end of it they're going to get this result."

Lori Kennedy: So that your brand and your business is set up to attract those people into your world, to all of them then go through your methodology. And you would then add on levels of support. So whether that's group calls or one on one calls, where I find people get a bit confused with this whole group coaching business is they do group coaching and then they have an entirely separate one on one thing on the side, and I'm like, "No, that's not your ticket to freedom."

Lori Kennedy: When you have a launch, which is really just a promotional event, you are putting an event around enrolling people into your program. And so because you have this methodology that hopefully is automated because you're able to put dozens of people through it because you are no longer creating on the fly, you're no longer repeating yourself a million times because you have this methodology you run everybody through, you can have a promotional event, you can have an enrollment event and you can also enroll people ongoing.

Lori Kennedy: And so launching in and of itself is one of the strategies that you would use to grow your business, because if you only ever launched, you'd only be enrolling clients two, three times a year. Well, I don't know about you, but I like to make money every day and I like to have impact every day. And so I don't want to be reliant only on launching two or three times a year because what happens if one of them flops or Facebook shuts off your ads, which had like ... You don't want to put all your eggs in one basket.

Lori Kennedy: And so I love launching, I think that they're great. I totally think that they still work. A lot of people are like, "Oh, launches are dead." They're just different. It's just different now. The way that you have to go about them is a little bit different than you did in 2015, for example, or even 2017. But the whole idea is to have this mainstay of your business, right? And the mainstay is this methodology by which you deliver a specific result. It's what you become known for, it's what makes you the expert, otherwise you're just bopping all around, helping anyone and everyone, and that's not a way to grow business.

Kendra Perry: Great. Yeah, and I like what you said. So you mentioned people who have ... They're like, this is the group coaching and this is the one on one, but you're saying that people should combine it. And what you mean by that is maybe like running people through a group and then they upgrade to become a one on one client or just having a one on one client thing and you put everyone through some sort of methodology. Is that what you mean by that?

Lori Kennedy: Kind of. I think it's definitely a paradigm shift. You can do it any way you want. Right? I think it's just understanding what your goals are. So if you have a group program, what that means is people start and stop on specific days. So the group cohort would start on September 15th and end on November 15th, but that means that people who see you, who contact you in October, they would then have to wait until February, let's just say. Well, that kind of sucks for everybody. So you can have groups, but because you have this methodology, you're also able to enroll people all the time.

Lori Kennedy: So the way that I teach it is think about the methodology and its own self contained container, right? So the methodology is the methodology, it's your 12 module program, let's just say. And if you wanted to run that as a group, you could. You could also simultaneously have people enrolling into it all the time, in which case you could then offer weekly group calls. And it doesn't matter when anybody ... If they're all at different points in the program, it doesn't matter.

Lori Kennedy: You could then offer an additional level of support, which would be one on one calls. Right? It's like when you go to ... I go to this place called BodyBlitz downtown, it's like waters and it's amazing. And so they have like the base, which is the waters, right? You go in the water and you go to the sauna and you do the whole thing, right? It's like the ... What's it called when you go around? I can't remember.

Kendra Perry: Like a circuit or something.

Lori Kennedy: A circuit, thank you. It's like a circuit. But then you can add on a massage and you can add on to this and you could add on different levels of small packages. It's the same thing. It's kind of like that for the program. You have your base methodology and then you could add on group calls and you could add on one on one supports so that anyone can start at any time, so that you're constantly enrolling people. And then during the hot times of the year, January, September, the spring, you could launch and do a group.

Kendra Perry: Right. I see what you're saying.

Lori Kennedy: Right? So-

Kendra Perry: Yeah. You're promoting this evergreen model where people are just-

Lori Kennedy: ... Yes.

Kendra Perry: ... Because yeah, I totally agree with you. Having a big launch three times a year is nice. You can make a bunch of money, but yeah. I mean yeah, Facebook ads getting shut off or like so many things could happen that could make it unsuccessful and then you're screwed for the next six months.

Lori Kennedy: Exactly. Right? So being able to run your business that way allows you to also scale it.

Kendra Perry: Yeah.

Christine: So I have a question for you. When do you think is a good time to start your first group program? Because I just talked to someone that I signed up as a mentee and she was basically told to immediately start with a group program because it does have so many advantages, you don't need to ... It's much less time for you, obviously lots is automated, you just do the group calls.

Christine: However, till she started her business she hasn't had a single private client yet. I was like, "Well, it's going to be difficult to fill your group program, and if you have your group calls and there is nobody there or just one person they might wonder where's the rest of the bunch?" Right? So when do you consider a good point to start a group program?

Lori Kennedy: So this again goes back to having a group or running it one on one is a tactic. So the way that I teach people is let's build your methodology, right? And Beta test the methodology. So if you have a 12 module system, right? You're getting rid of IBS symptoms, you're not custom making that program to each individual person. You're thinking, "Okay, what are the fundamentals that my ideal client, a person who has X, Y, and Z symptoms, what are the fundamentals that they need to learn and do in order to get an X result?"

Lori Kennedy: And to the way that we teach it is I want you to create the methodology and I want you to Beta test it. If you want to have five of your friends start the Beta test at the same time, great. A group, right? If you want to run seven people through it independently, one on one, great. Either way, we have an ethical responsibility as the practitioners to test our methodology before we do anything. Right? And so whether you're starting with one on one or a group to me is irrelevant, I want to know that what you're doing is quality.

Lori Kennedy: I think people have this idea that they need to start with a group or start one to one. No, you need to put X number of people through a Beta test. Then you can say, "Okay, now that my hypothesis is Beta tested," right? "Now that I've had seven people go through it," whether they started at the same time or not is irrelevant. You can then go, "Okay, I feel super confident about the program I'm going to run because I got all this feedback, I've taken time to fix it. I've taken time to go through it."

Lori Kennedy: And then if they wanted to run a group, they would have had testimonials, because they've run a Beta test, right? If they wanted to start with a group of let's say five people, they could. If they wanted to do it one on one, they could, but it's wrapped around putting people through a methodology. Right? So when people say like, "I don't have any client experience," because people in our program say that they come in because they don't have it. I'm like, "You don't need it. Go create your methodology and Beta. Go put it through a Beta test. That's your experience. That's your first five clients. That's your first 10 clients."

Lori Kennedy: We recommend in the Wellness Business Academy that you Beta test with minimum five people. Right? So after you've done that, then you can say, "Okay, what's the model that I'm going to use to facilitate this program?" The model would be either running it as a group or enrolling clients on a one on one basis, but regardless, everybody goes through that methodology because it's the ticket to freedom so that you're not constantly creating different things for different people when everybody needs the fundamentals anyway.

Christine: Yeah. I mean, that's genius. I love the idea of Beta testing. I've done it quite a few times because, yeah, you're not going to hit the nail on the head the first time, especially when you're brand new and by doing that you can actually like get feedback from your people and figure out what are they missing? Maybe something you didn't even think about, you're like, "Oh, they really need this and so I should be offering that." It's almost like this co-creation sort of thing. Your ideal clients and your expertise, which I think is super intelligent.

Lori Kennedy: And I think for those people too, who don't have client experience, it alleviates so much pressure of needing the program to be perfect. Right? When we teach people to be like, "Don't worry, it's going to suck. That's why your Beta testing." You need the people to give you all the feedback, otherwise you spend a year in perfectionistic syndrome being like, "I don't know," and you're all nervous because you have no frame of reference whether it's going to work or not. Well, of course. So having that Beta test, having sort of that ... Letting even the clients off the hook, people charge for the Beta or they don't charge, to me it's irrelevant. I don't care.

Lori Kennedy: I just want you to do it. I want you to go through the experience to get the feedback, to see how your overwhelming or how you're underwhelming your clients so that you can make it better, which you will probably iterate the program three or four times in the first year before you even feel like super good, but you can go out and scale. I think people come out of school and do their first year and they're like, "I'm not at six figures yet. Why?" And I'm like, "Because that's not how it works. You're still working at the case- "

Kendra Perry: Yeah, you can't build a business in 90 days.

Lori Kennedy: ... Like, "Hello, you're still working at the case." Right?

Christine: Well, I pay for that.

Kendra Perry: Yeah, it's a really important conversation because I see a lot of coaches doing this where they spend six months to a year creating this program and spending all this money and time to make this perfect program, and they go to sell it and it doesn't sell or people take it and it doesn't work and then it's really frustrating. Right? It's really disheartening. I've actually been guilty that I did that with my first online program ever. I did all the wrong things.

Lori Kennedy: It's really upsetting. And part of that is because they just don't have the experience and the skillset creating a program. The program in and of itself isn't what sells the program. People come, even in my world too, they're like, "I tried to launch this thing and it didn't work, maybe I need to go and recreate the program." I'm like, "No, you need to learn how to sell."

Lori Kennedy: How would you know that the program sucks if you didn't have anybody go through it? That doesn't make any sense to me. It's not the program that sells the program, it's your ability to identify the person's pain and connect the program to that pain and to be able to say, "Here is how this is going to help you when nothing else has in the past." It's the ability to know how to use that language.

Kendra Perry: Yeah, and I feel that people, yeah, they get into business and instead of updating their business knowledge like, "Oh, I need another health certification or I should go to that school. I need to upgrade, take that course." And they just keep piling up these courses when really they actually ... You're right, they need to learn how to sell. They need to read a book on direct response copywriting, which everyone should if you take anything from this episode.

Lori Kennedy: Yeah. And I think the reason that they don't is because that's not what they signed up for.

Kendra Perry: Exactly.

Lori Kennedy: And rightfully so, none of us signed up for that. Except that's what's required.

Christine: Agreed.

Kendra Perry: It's a slap in the face, isn't it?

Christine: So for those of you who are listening and who are like, "Crap." I'm super proud because I know well, my smoothie represent recipes and I just finished all my blog posts. You just want to cry, don't, as you know we provide solutions. So Lori tell us a little bit about, you were afraid that you teach all of this. Walk us through that. I read the two quizzes or the two programs, the two main programs that you have. So tell us a little bit about those.

Lori Kennedy: Yeah. So the Wellness Business Academy is for you, if you don't yet have a signature program, if you've not created one, if you've not Beta tested it, if you've not created it in an automated scalable way. So before we can grow a business, we need something to use to grow it with and that would be your signature program. And so once that's done, then we move you into the 10K Success System, which is really about scaling, right? It's about getting that five figure a month revenue. It's about working on a lot of this mindset stuff to be able to show up as an authority, show up as a leader. It's paid traffic. It's a lot of those next level things that come after having the foundation, which is your signature program and the Beta test.

Christine: Love it. Yeah, absolutely love it. So where can people buy?

Lori Kennedy: We have an application process, specifically for the 10K Success System because it's not right for everybody, and we want to ... We protect our clients very much, we protect the culture that we're building inside of that community. I think the best place to go honestly would be my Instagram. I think there is ... If you go to my Instagram, which is at Lori Kennedy Inc, I'm sure you'll link to it in your show notes.

Christine: We will.

Lori Kennedy: In my bio there is an opportunity for you to schedule a brainstorming call with our success coaches. So it's a free call, it's a brainstorming call. If they feel like you're a good fit for other one, they'll let you know at the end of the call. And if that's something that you want to discuss, you can, otherwise, it's just really helpful to get on a call with our coaches so that you can see the gaps and where you need to improve. I think a lot of people have a hard time because they're not even sure where the gaps are in their skills. They just know that they're not gaining the momentum and attraction that they want.

Lori Kennedy: And so our priority and our responsibility is first and foremost before we even introduce you to anything, is to really help you to see where the breakdowns are so that ... Our solutions may or may not be right for you. And if they are, we'll obviously tell you. But I think either way it's so important to have people in your life to help you gain that clarity, to be able to understand ... It's the reason that I just joined another mastermind because we are growing, and I don't know what's going to break.

Lori Kennedy: And I know enough now to know that there is other people out there that can tell me. I don't want to ... if I can avoid the break, I'm going to pay for that. I'm going to pay a lot of money for someone to be able to say to me, "When you hit X, this is what will likely happen. So let's navigate against that now." I want that, right? So that's part of what we do, is if you want to get to five figures, here is what we need to have in place, otherwise you will want to quit because you will be tired. Right?

Kendra Perry: So for now it's awesome.

Lori Kennedy: Yeah.

Kendra Perry: Yeah. I love how much you're infusing the mindset stuff into it because it's so important and it's definitely something that I never knew. I didn't know I was going to have to like figure my shit out to be able to run a business. Like, it's crazy. Like I'm like ... I mean, it's amazing because I think it's made me a better human and I've learned so much about myself, but yeah, you really got to like figure your shit out.

Lori Kennedy: It's a super confronting.

Christine: It's tough but you're a better person for it, always. But you can never go back though people, so if you don't want to know ...

Lori Kennedy: You never go back.

Christine: You never go back.

Lori Kennedy: And it may be slightly hard to live in the world when you [inaudible 00:45:35]

Christine: Totally.

Lori Kennedy: It makes it hard to be amongst the people. But then you find your own people and you're good.

Kendra Perry: Exactly. You find your little crowd, which is much more genuine and more intense than anything, but yeah, a lot of people were just like, "Gosh, I will be fine." That's why I found you Christine, just so I can box you all day long. You're my therapist. Awesome. Well, thank you so much Lori. There was so many good gems in this, we really appreciate you being-

Lori Kennedy: Yeah, thank you. This is great.

Kendra Perry: ... on interview with us. So definitely check out Lori at Lori Kennedy Inc on Instagram. I follow you. I love following you, you have really good info there, great stories, so you guys should all follow her. And guys, if you love this episode, you got to let us know. Go to iTunes or wherever. I think you can leave a review on Spotify too, I don't even know. But go to iTunes, leave us a five star review and just let us know that you love this content so that we can keep putting it out there for you. That is the number one way you can support us and it only takes two minutes, probably not even.

Christine: Yeah, and feel free to follow us on Instagram, 360 Health Biz Podcast, and also to send us messages. Like, if you have any requests or anything you want us to talk about, you know we're a game for everything, just-

Kendra Perry: We're a game.

Christine: ... We will do that, so we're totally open for requests.

Kendra Perry: Awesome. Thanks guys. So we'll see you guys again in two weeks.

Kendra has 3 great tips to optimize your Instagram bio, including what to put in the name field (hint it doesn't have to JUST be your name), what your description should say, and you always want a great call to action...unfortunately none of this should include how much you love puppies.

Instagram is THE place to promote yourself, we are seeing far more people go to Instagram as their starting point when looking for a new anything. And the first thing people see when they go to an Instagram page is the bio section. What you do not want here is an undescriptive sense of what you do...OR you don't want to be over descriptive of things that aren't relative to what you're trying to promote. "I am an ITN, FDN and essential oils coach. I really like the mountains, puppies and I'm a mom of 3 kids and 2 puppies. Did I mention I like dogs?" Listen, we all love dogs (though Kendra and Christine are both cat people) but no one is going to have a clue what you ACTUALLY do and will likely not follow you.

When it comes to your Instagram bio, start by including what you do in the name section. The name section allows for 30 characters or less so be creative but make it something that will intrigue people, like Christine Hansen Sleep Expert or Kendra Health Coach Mentor. Not only are these intriguing titles where you want to find out more, but the name field in Instagram is searchable! So if someone typed in "health coach mentor" guess who appears at the very top of the search list? And as a new practitioner starting out, that will be a HUGE advantage for you.

Once you've got your catchy name, you want a simple but clear description. As mentioned, dogs should be excluded from the description unless you run a dog walking business. Make it incredibly clear about what you do, who you help, and make it solution or action based.

And included in your brief & clear description, you want a strong call to action. This could be anything from "DM for more information" or "click here to download my free guide". People want to be told what to do. If you want people to take a specific action, then you need to say it. If you just launched a new YouTube video - include the link to watch it directly! If you have a free download - include the link in your Instagram bio! Don't just direct to your website and have them figure out where it lives because it won't take them long in the search before they close out of that window and leave your instagram page.

Still not sure what to do with your Instagram bio? Take a screenshot of your Instagram bio, put it to your Instagram stories, tag 360 Help Biz Podcast, and we'll go through and we'll actually review your bio and give you some feedback. And don't forget to follow us if you don't already.

Hey, guys. I'm Kendra Perry, and welcome to your Biz Bomb Episode of the 360 Help Biz Podcast. This is the episode where we take a huge biz bomb full of information. We throw it in your face, and then your head explodes because you're so excited with the information. So today guys, we're going to be talking about the Instagram bio. I'm going to give you three ways that you could optimize your Instagram bio for your ideal client. Okay? So the first thing I want to talk about is your name. The space where you put your name in, not a lot of people know this, but that's actually searchable. So if you're brand new and starting out, there's actually not a lot of benefit to putting your name in the name field, weird but true. Okay? Because if say I'm a brand new health coach, a lot of people might not actually be searching for Kendra Perry, possibly no one, right? Especially if you're brand spanking new. Okay?So a really good tip is to put your first name with a dash or a line or a slash or whatever, and then what it is that you do, something that people might actually be searching for. So if you go to my Instagram bio, you'll see Kendra dash health coach mentor. Or in the past, I think I've had Kendra dash business mentor. Okay? So maybe yours is Karen dash mindset coach or Jenna dash meal plan expert or whatever it is that you do, because that is a searchable word. So it's in your best benefit to have something in there that's searchable that you actually think your ideal client might be looking for. Okay? So that's tip number one.Tip number two is your description. This is where I see so many people go wrong. When I go on to different health coach accounts, I see this all the time. I see this mistake all the time. Okay? What I see is that people are being really kind of undescriptive about what they do. They're not being very clear, and they might just be listing their certifications, their hobbies, where they live. Maybe it's like, "I'm certified through IIN, I've done ITN, FDN, I'm an essential oils coach. I really like the mountains. I like puppies and I'm a mom." As nice as that is, when I come to that, I actually have not a frigging clue what you do, not a clue. I'm going to see that, I'm going to be confused and I'm probably not going to follow you. It's really, really important to use the characters that you do have in your description to be incredibly clear about what it is you do and who you help, and make it solution based.If you're someone who helps women lose weight, for example, you might say, "I'm a health coach who helps busy women lose 10 pounds without changing their diet or without getting stressed out." That's really specific. So instead of just saying like, "weight loss coach," I might go to that because maybe I am a busy mom who needs to lose 20 pounds, and as soon as I see that I'm going to be like, "Oh, shit. this is a good account for me to follow and I'm going to click the follow button." Because the truth is, you only have about five seconds to really catch someone's attention and make them want to follow you. Okay? So you need to be incredibly, incredibly specific, and within that description it should be solution-based or action-based, like what is the problem that you help this person solve and what is the solution that you're going to help them get?So feel free to check out my Instagram account or even the 360 Help Biz Podcast Instagram account because kperrynutrition is my personal Instagram, and then 360healthbizpodcast is our podcast one. Feel free to go check that out and see how specific we are in our description. Because basically you go there and you know exactly what I do. You know that I help health coaches master hair mineral analysis plus hit 10k a month in their business, right, so very action based. So you're a new health coach and you're like, "I'm only making 3k a month. I really want to hit five figures," and you see that, you would probably follow me. Because you'd be like, "Okay, this chick's going to help me hit five figures." Or you're like, "I'm really interested in hair mineral analysis. I'm really interested in doing this test. I can't figure out where to learn it." And you see my profile, you're going to be like, "Oh my God, she teaches it. I'm going to follow her and listen to everything she says."See where I'm going here? It's really, really important to be as specific as you absolutely possibly can so that you grab your ideal client's attention. So it should be very specific to your ideal plan. You don't know who your ideal client is, well, that's your first problem, right? You're going to want to spend some time actually figuring out who you're talking to so you know what to put in your Instagram bio. Okay? The third thing is to make sure you have a really strong call to action in that description. That should be the other half of it. So you have your name with your searchable term, you have your really specific description about what you do and what problem you solve, and then you have something that's a call to action.That could be, "DM start to learn more," right? So maybe if I have, "I teach you how to grow to five figure a month in your business with a minimalist business model, DM start to learn more." Basically, I'm telling you exactly what to do. I'm not even saying, "Just DM me to learn more." I'm telling you what to DM me. I'm telling you to say "start," because people really want to be told what to do. You don't want to leave it up to them because in the end they might not do the thing that you actually want them to do. People aren't mind readers, so if you want people to take a specific action, and you do right? Then you need to say it. So maybe it's like, "This is my free opt-in. Click here," and that's your link below, whatever it is.A really good thing to put in your link would not be to just be your website but would actually to be your free offer or your free lead [inaudible 00:05:45] or maybe your latest YouTube video or your latest podcast episode or whatever it is that you want to put there. I really don't recommend using just your website because you want to be very specific. Going back to helping moms lose weight, you could say like, "Get my free checklist that helps you lose your first five pounds," and then have a little arrow or a pointy finger to that link that goes directly to your opt-in. Okay? If people really want to find your website, they'll be able to find it, or they'll just contact you through Instagram.So that's really, really important, is that you have a very, very strong call to action. Let's quickly run through these one more time, guys. Number one is to make sure that where you put your name, you also have a searchable term of what you do. So me as a business mentor, I might put Kendra dash business mentor. You as a health coach, you might say Karen dash mindset coach or essential oil coach or whatever, weight loss coach. Okay? Something that you think your ideal client might actually be searching. The second thing is to be very, very specific with your description. Don't list your hobbies. Don't list your certifications. Just list what you do and who you help and how you help them solve it. So be very, very specific with this, and if you need inspiration, make sure to check out KPerryNutrition.You can check out Christine's profile because she's also very specific. She's sleeplikeaboss or check out our 360 Help Biz Podcast account because on all three accounts we're very specific. And then number three is to have that really, really strong call to action where you tell people exactly what to do, whether it's pointing people to your free opt-in, your new YouTube video, your new podcast, or even just telling me, "Send me a DM with the word start to learn more." Make it specific. Tell people exactly what it is you want them to do.All right, guys, I hope you found this episode helpful. We do these Biz Bomb episodes every other Wednesday and it rotates between myself and Christine, so I really hope you enjoy it. If you liked it, please do leave us a five-star review on iTunes or Spotify or wherever, Stitcher, wherever. Because it really helps us know that you like the content we're giving and that we know to create more just like it. The other thing you can do, if you want me to review your Instagram bio, just take a screenshot of your bio, put it to your Stories, tag 360 Help Biz Podcast, and we'll go through and we'll actually review your bio and give you some feedback. Okay? I would love to help you. I hope you enjoyed this episode guys, and we'll see you next Wednesday.

Did that title get your attention? The rate at which Lyme has grown is exponential and every year it seems to be getting worse with no signs of slowing down. So what is causing this increase? The World Health Organization came out with a paper suggesting that climate change is one of the driving forces behind this due to warmer winters where the ticks aren't being killed off, so they are able to repopulate. YEAR ROUND. This, along with many other factors is causing an influx of Lyme. There is approximately 300,000 new cases of Lyme disease in the US and about 65,000 new cases in Europe. And those are REPORTED cases (remember Lyme is often misdiagnosed) so we are not seeing these numbers slowing down.

In this episode, we talk with Dr. Darin Ingels about the environmental factors playing a part in the increase of Lyme disease, plus treatments for Lyme, how to PROPERLY get tested for Lyme disease, and the two very unique indicators that one might have Lyme disease.

Darin got interested in Lyme when he developed symptoms of high fever, joint pain, migraines, numbness/tingling in 2002, just 3 weeks before opening his own practice. When he saw the bullseye rash on his leg, he knew that it could only be one thing – Lyme disease (hint: the bullseye rash is one of the two indicators of Lyme).

There is a long list of symptoms when it comes to Lyme which is why it’s called the great imitator. It looks like a lot of other things and is why it gets misdiagnosed frequently. It's just very easy to confuse it with something else. Some of the symptoms may include (but not limited to): joint pain, persistent headaches, unexplained fever, chills, swollen lymph nodes, persistent fatigue, numbness and tingling in your extremities, numbness or tingling on your skin, Bell's palsy (drooping of one side of your face), memory problems, coordination issues, balance problems, and/or behavior issues.

But there are two indicators that Dr. Ingels explained are unique to Lyme disease. The bullseye rash and migrating join pain. That means one day you could have pain in your left shoulder and the next day you have pain in your right knee. When you start to see this it’s best to test for Lyme. Oh and what makes Lyme even more fun is that only 35% of those with Lyme actually get the bullseye rash! We hope you sensed our sarcasm when we said it was fun…Lyme really seems to be a pain in everyone’s ass, or should we say in our joints..with the pain migrating constantly.

Tune in to hear Dr. Ingels discuss his struggles and successes with Lyme treatment, recommendations on labs to get properly tested and which diet is the BEST to follow for symptom improvements.

Dr. Ingels is a respected leader in natural medicine with more than 28 years experience in the healthcare field. He is Board certified in Integrated Pediatrics and a Fellow of the American Academy of Environmental Medicine. Dr. Ingels has been published extensively and is the author of “The Lyme Solution: A 5-Part Plan to Fight the Inflammatory Autoimmune Response and Beat Lyme Disease”, a comprehensive natural approach to treating Lyme disease. He specializes in Lyme disease, autism and chronic immune dysfunction. He uses diet, nutrients, herbs, homeopathy and immunotherapy to help his patients achieve better health.

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TRANSCRIPTS

Christine: Hello everyone and welcome to this episode of the 360 health biz podcasts. And today you have the beautiful and wonderful co-host is with the most is Kendra Perry and humble me, Christine Hansen, and we have a wonderful guest today, Dr. Darin Ingels. We're going to talk about Lyme. So we are super excited, lime not you know, the beautiful green fruit that you put into your Mojito but a disease, we're a little bit, I'm already feeling the summer over here so. But I'm super excited because we talk about this all the time, and we would like to know a lot more about it. So we think this is going to be a great episode for you guys out there too, and if you like our episodes, if you love it, then do the same thing as this wonderful, and express and Kendra is going to talk about because she left us a wonderful review.

Kendra: Yeah. So we have a five-star review from TM Narin, and I know who you are, and I really appreciate it. And the title of her review says, "I'm learning, and laughing." And then she says, "Great podcasts. I'm gearing up to start my online business, and I'm so happy to hear the tips from Kendra and Christine. What a great vibe. Love your energy ladies." I think that's kind of like our tagline, learning and laughing because that was pretty much of what we talk about. Good content, but we make a lot of stupid jokes along the way. We kind of like to take life too seriously. Right? That's how we roll, so that's pretty exciting.

Christine: All right. And so let me introduce it a little bit more to our wonderful guests. And if you want to know what we all look like, then don't forget to go to our website 360 health biz podcast.com and you can check out each episode and it has our video on that too.

Christine: So, and especially today, we're all pretty today for once. There's a couple of that I don't want you to look at, but this one you can. Let me introduce you to the beautiful, Dr. Ingles. So, Dr. Ingles is a respected leader in natural medicine with more than 26 years of experience in the healthcare field. He's a board certified in integrative for pediatrics and fellow of the American and the Academy of Environmental Medicine. Dr. Ingles has been published extensively and is the author of the Lyme solution a five-part plan to fight the inflammatory autoimmune response and beat Lyme disease. And I know for a fact that this has been published Internationally, so I still need to read it, but I'm super excited and I have it, I bought it. It's a comprehensive natural approach to treat Lyme disease and who doesn't want that. He specializes in the disease, autism and chronic immune dysfunction. And he uses diet, nutrients, herbs, homeopathy, and immunotherapy to help his patients achieve better health. So it's totally down our alley. So welcome. Do I have to say, Dr. Ingle? So can I call you Darren?

Dr, Darren: Darren will be fine. That's what my mother calls me.

Christine: Okay good. perfect.

Kendra: Welcome to the show. Darren, we're so excited to have you.

Dr, Darren: Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

Christine: All right. So we know that you started your career, and your story would just be chatted about it just before. Is that you got interested in Lyme kind of because you had to, right?

Dr, Darren: Yeah. I developed Lyme disease back in 2002 when I was living in Connecticut. Ironically it was about three weeks before I was set to open my own practice. So as I was getting geared up, getting all the furniture and the fixtures, and everything in order, I started getting very sick. I had a very high fever and joint pain. I felt like my back was broken, a migraine headache, the worst I've ever had in my life. Numbness, tingling, the whole gamut of symptoms. And I had meningitis when I was in college. I thought I had meningitis again. And as I was getting ready to go to the hospital, someone had noticed I had a big bullseye rash on the back of my leg. And I said, oh, okay, well now I know what it is. So I underwent treatment. And after a few days, I have actually felt fine. But since I was opening my own business, I was doing everything, very long hours.

Dr, Darren: And after about eight months of keeping up with that schedule, I started to relapse, started getting joint pains again and started getting the [00:22:24]Thyropathy. So I said, I did this before and it was fine. So I went back on treatment, which at the time was Doxycyline, and it didn't help. And then I changed the antibiotics, and it didn't help. And I went through nine months of changing antibiotic protocols and actually got a lot worse. So I lost 30 pounds. My Gut was a mess and I just really wasn't feeling well. So I was fortunate that I found a doctor in New York City, his name is doctor Jiang, he's a Chinese medical doctor and herbalists, and he started treating me with Chinese herbs.

Dr, Darren: And really after about three weeks of following that protocol, I was 80 85% improved. So it was kind of my reminder that I need to go back to my nature pathic roots, and really start taking better care of myself, eat better. I followed his protocol for quite a long time, and it took about two years after that time to feel like I got my health back, but eventually got to the point where I was living symptom-free. So I just really started applying what I was doing to myself, to my patients and sound that they were improving faster than what I'd been doing before.

Christine: Kendra you were going to say something, I think.

Kendra: Yeah, I was just going to say, it's interesting because all the people that I've talked to who have Lyme like, yeah, they go the antibiotic route. And I feel like a lot of them aren't aware that there might be a different way. And so what you're saying is that you went 100% natural after you kind of gave up on antibiotics and that was able to actually get rid of the Lyme infection. Correct.

Dr, Darren: Right. And now having done this for 20 years, I've seen so many people who've gone down that path, and for people who've gone down that path. If it's worked for you, great. What I'm saying is the people who've tried that path and it hasn't worked and they ended up worse for the wear. So I just want people to know that there are other options and for people who've studied herbs, you now know how powerful they can be. But in my world now, Lyme treatment is so much more than just about killing the bug.

Dr, Darren: It's really a comprehensive approach to the person, and the way I think of Lyme is that it really just becomes a catalyst for all these other things that happen in the body so it can disrupt your immune system, it can disrupt your endocrine system. And we start seeing thyroid problems, adrenal problems, reproductive hormone problems, all these other types of immune issues. So it's not really just about killing the bug, that's now actually a very small part of the treatment. It's really about addressing all these other factors that get disrupted when you get exposed to Lyme. So when I wrote my book, it was a sort of a top to bottom. How do we go through everything and trying to get the body and better working order? It's really ultimately about fixing the terrain.

Christine: So let me just ask you a question to get back to basics. So Lyme, I knew that there was Lyme disease, right? Also because I see it in my clients, or my clients come to me and they told me that they've been diagnosed, but that they are cured. And I use air quotes here because they did the antibiotic regimen. So Lyme, what I knew about it is just the tick is the first thought that I have, being bitten by a tick and getting Lyme. Right. I thought. Okay, so the tick bites you, and it's something in there that is then infecting you. So it's not a virus, it's a bug. I didn't even know that.

Dr, Darren: Yeah. So Lyme is actually a bacteria, it's called Borrelia. And there is the first strain that we identified back in the 1980s, early eighties it was called Borrelia Burgdorferi. We have now learned that they're about a hundred strains in the North American, about 300 strains worldwide of Borrelia. We don't even know how many of those strains actually can cause Lyme disease. Our best guesses that there's probably somewhere between 10 and 12 that seem to do most of the damage. And what's interesting is that if you go to different parts of the world, the strain of Borrelia that's more dominant is different. So the strains we see here in North America are different than the strains we see in Europe, which are different than the strains they see in Africa and so forth.

Dr, Darren: So there are different variations of Borrelia around the world. This speaks a little bit to why testing becomes so problematic because the testing out there really is only looking for Borrelia Burgdorferi. So unless you start ordering tests for these other strains of Borrelia, and again, we don't even have testing for really all of them. It's very easy that if you happen to get a different strain of Borrelia that it doesn't show up on the test, your test looks negative and the doctor dismisses you and says, "Oh yeah, you don't have Lyme disease." Well, it's possible that your test is negative only because you've got a different strain of Borrelia.

Kendra: Wow, that's so interesting. So how common is Lyme disease? And I'm guessing it's probably hard to know for certain if a lot of people are getting misdiagnosed, but I feel like how I perceive Lyme is something that's very rare. It doesn't happen very much. But is it may be more prevalent than I think it is.

Dr, Darren: Well, I think it certainly depends on where you live in the world. When I was living in Connecticut and the Northeast part of the United States, the central Midwest part of the United States are endemic for Lyme. We know that's where the bulk of the cases come from, but it's now been reported in all 50 states in the United States. We now have about 300,000 new cases of Lyme disease in the US and about 65,000 new cases in Europe. That's what's reported. We know it's unreported, so I don't know that we really have a true idea about how many people actually get it every year. But I mean in reality, we are talking about millions and millions of people worldwide living with Lyme disease. And we do know from the World Health Organization that that number keeps increasing.

Dr, Darren: So the rate at which Lyme has grown is really been somewhat exponential and every year it gets worse, and really no signs of slowing down. I think the World Health Organization came out with a paper suggesting that climate change really is one of the driving forces because no ticks aren't being killed off, there. so they are able to repopulate. When I was living in Connecticut, we kind of dependent on our cold winters to kill off the ticks. Well, we've had pretty warm winters and the ticks don't go away, and there's even a couple of studies that show that the techs can get under the leaves and survive the snow. So-

Christine: It's so creepy.

Dr, Darren: A lot of the natural predators for ticks like possums, that population is dwindling. So the things that would normally get rid of ticks aren't getting rid of ticks and the tick population is able to expand. And then we've got some other research showing that birds are carrying those ticks from one region to another. So I think that's why we see over the last couple of decades, it used to be sort of that Northeast corner of the US, well now it's down the entire Eastern Seaboard. It's on the West coast, and we just see it pushing inward. So it's just one of those things where we're seeing more and more cases. But again, I don't think we have a really good handle on how many people are living with Lyme. But it's a lot.

Kendra: Yeah. We had Dr. Evan Hirsch, I'm the show a couple of weeks ago, and you know him oversees of course as well as a part of the mindset community that I talked about before and he said it's tricky because a lot of people are misdiagnosed. So because the symptoms are so tricky, sometimes they are often misdiagnosed as being having arthritis, or any joint pains, or anything like that. So can you talk a little bit more about that because I think it might be interesting that, if you see a client, or a patient and you kind of see their symptoms, but you also know that it's not necessarily what you would think at first sight, and why that might actually be Lyme because there're some particularities to it that way.

Dr, Darren: Yeah. Well, we call Lyme the great imitator or the great mimic. It looks like a lot of other things and again I think this is part of why it gets misdiagnosed quite frequently. It's just very easy to confuse it with something else, there're two things that are very characteristic to Lyme that is really unique, and we don't think of any other condition. One is the bullseye rash. There is no other condition that we know of the causes that Bullseye rash, there's a lot of other skin rashes of course, and you can have other Lyme rashes that's not a bullseye rash, but when you see that target lesion or bull's eye rash, that's a pretty telltale sign again. We've not identified anything else that mimics that.

Dr, Darren: So the bullseye rash is one. The other thing that's very unique to Lyme is what we call migratory joint pain. So one day it's my right shoulder, the next day it's my left knee, and then it's my right ankle and then it's my left elbow. When you start to see the joint pain that seems to kind of migrate throughout your body. Again, there's no other condition that we know of that causes that. There's a lot of other conditions that cause inflammatory arthritis but not that migratory nature. So those two signs, when I hear about that from someone that's a big red flag that Lyme is probable, beyond that the symptoms can be often quite vague. But we talked about joint pain, persistent headaches, fever that's unexplained, chills, swollen lymph nodes, persistent fatigue, numbness and tingling in your extremities, or anywhere in your skin. You can get Bell's palsy, which is kind of drooping of one side of your face. Again, memory problems, coordination issues, balance problems, behavior issues.

Dr, Darren: We see that a lot in children. People will start getting what I kind of called newly acquired dyslexia. Where they start transposing letters and numbers. People complain their handwriting gets worse. I will see sleep problems its taken a lot of endocrine problems. People all of a sudden become hyperthyroid for no reason. So it's a pretty wide range of symptoms. I think for me when I hear about things that are neurological and arthritic, that combination together for me again is a red flag that I investigate, and at least do the testing to see if Lyme is part of the problem. Because again, I think there are very few things that cause neurological problems and arthritic problems. Lyme and other infectious agents have the capacity to do that. But Lyme certainly at the top of that list.

Kendra: Let me ask you this. Do you get Lyme will you always see that bull's eye or does sometimes-

Christine: That was my question.

Kendra: We're sharing a brain, Christine,

Dr, Darren: I know it's really interesting actually. If you read the CDC website, they say something like 70 to 80% of people who get infected get that bullseye rash. But the research does not corroborate that at all. And the actual incidence of getting that rash is probably somewhere around 30%. There is a lot of variation in the research I've read anywhere from 20 to 40%. So we'll say 30% is an average. So realistically, less than half the people who get infected get that rash. So again, for people who get that rash, that's a pretty reliable marker. They'd been exposed. But the absence of the rash certainly doesn't exclude the possibility of Lyme. And I think that's the bulk of the cases that I see, is people have no recollection of a tick bite, no recollection of a bullseye rash, but they all of a sudden start developing all these mysterious symptoms, and they've had a thousand tests and everything keeps coming back normal again. That's my red flag that we should investigate Lyme or some other type of tickborne illness.

Christine: And there are other things that can come with the Lyme other than the Borrelia. Right? There's like the co-infections.

Dr, Darren: Yeah. There's a lot we call co-infections and I swear every time I go to a Lyme conference, that list gets longer. So we know like a lot of the ticks up the wing when they found that something like 33 to 37% of those ticks carries something else other than Lyme. So things like Bartonellemia, which is a bacteria, Babesia which is a parasite, Anaplasma, which is a bacteria, rocky mountain spotted fever or Ehrlicia. One of the latest ones is called plasmids virus. It's actually a virus. Obviously, it can be very deadly, caused a few deaths over the last few years between New York, Massachusetts.

Dr, Darren: So it's very challenging when you've got a patient who has these collections symptoms. I would say, well, what do you test for? And we try and do as comprehensive testing as possible. Fortunately, we do have labs out there that provide that, but you really kind of have to take a good detailed history, really know what's going on with the patient, where their exposure has been, where they've been traveling to. That might help narrow down what you need to look at. But in reality, when I test people, I'm not just testing for Lyme. We're going through the gamut of a lot of the common co-infections as well.

Christine: Okay. So talk a little bit more about that because that's where Kendra and my eyes are lightening up writing the tests. So give specifics where exactly, which labs do you prefer because I'm thinking we talked about this before like we love some book, we don't even test for it, the doctors just send them straight to Germany because there are more specialized facilities there. But is there like a way where I'd say, I have a client coming to me, and they say I've been tested but it was negative, which I'm sure it pretty much was it, I'm pretty sure some of my clients still had that. What do I do? Like, do I have to tell them to ask the doctor to send me a prescription with exactly the strains. Is there an International lab where could send it to? Is there one in the states where I could see to find something? How do you do it? How do you test in?

Dr, Darren: Yeah. So, again, depending on where you live, sort of dictates for me which labs might be best because not all labs are available in all areas of the world. So for those of us living in the United States, I use a lab called Medical Diagnostic Labs in New Jersey. I like them because they offer Lyme testing and co-infection testing, but for here they bill insurance so for people it's nice that their insurance actually pays for something. So I like them. Also If you ever have a tick on you, you can take the tick and you can send it to them, and they'll take the tick, so you can find out if the tick can cure Lyme or any of those co-infections. Gen X is another great lab in Palo Alto, California.

Dr, Darren: They offer the gamut of Lyme and co-infection testing. They're a great lab, they just don't bill insurance outside of Medicare, which is our national insurance. If you lived across the pond, in your neck of the woods. Armin lab is a great lab, I know a lot of people in Germany use Armin. So Armin labs is a little bit different because all the other labs out there are doing antibody testing. [in audible]Our testing. So PCRs looking for fragments of the DNA of the organism. Armin lab is actually looking at a cytokine response. So it's actually looking at a different part of the immune system. So one of the advantages of that lab is that if someone has any kind of immune issue or immune deficiency where maybe they don't have a good antibody response, the Armin labs isn't looking at antibodies.

Dr, Darren: It's looking at cytokines. So you can still have an appropriate cytokine response and not an antibody response might still pick it up. And I've had some patients that have done testing through some of the labs here in the US. Their previous lab was negative. Now they do Armin and they're able to identify some of these things. So Lyme is a clinical diagnosis. I think it's really important. People understand that the piece of paper just there to kind of help validate our suspicion. But we treat people, we don't treat pieces of paper. So if all these tests come back negative and we've ruled everything else out and people have the symptoms of Lyme, I would still treat them. I think every practitioner finds the labs that they like to work with you. That's what works for you.

Dr, Darren: I mean I think they all offer good testing because if you look at the sensitivity and specificity of these labs versus just the run of the mill reference lab, it's much better. But I think between, MDL, Gen X, Armin, those are the three I probably use the most. Again, there are other labs out there that offer testing, so find what works for you. But what I would suggest is that don't just rely on your regular reference lab for their test kits just don't seem to have the sensitivity that we want or specificity to give you reliable results. And I've had plenty of patients over the years that went to quest, and a lab corp and got a test done. It was completely negative. We ran it through a lab that specializes in Lyme and now it lights up like a Christmas tree. So there is some validity in using a lab that does better testing.

Kendra: Are you familiar with the vibrant wellness tickborne panel? I've had a few people kind of pointed me in that direction.

Dr, Darren: Yeah, it's pretty new. They've only been really in that profile I think for a handful of months, in fact, I just got a work report yesterday on that patient. On paper, it seems to be fine. I don't know what technology they're using, what test kits they use. I haven't investigated it yet, on paper it seemed to look fine. I was a microbiologist before I was a doctor, actually used to do Lyme testing for a living. So it's changed a lot since I was in the lab 30 years ago. But I do have a pretty good sense of lab testing, and how things are validated. Some of the tests I'm a little bit concerned about is some of the DNA technology. There's a couple of labs out there that do purely DNA.

Dr, Darren: I think there are some inherent problems with that, where there's at least a couple of labs that I'm not sure that they go through the process of validating their primers. So with DNA technology, the way it's done is that you've got a thing called the primer. What a primer does is it tags, a certain part of the genetic sequence that says this is Lyme or this is Babesia. This is whatever you're looking for. Well if you can imagine there's a lot of overlapping genetic code in microbes. So whatever you've tagged is actually specific to that organism. So there's a whole process you have to go through to validate that primer.

Dr, Darren: And if you use unvalidated primers, it's very possible that you think you're finding Lyme, but you could actually finding something else. So if the lab doesn't really spend the time and money and use validated primers, your results would be speculative. So I'm a little hesitant to use some of the labs that use. Pure DNA technology just for that reason. And I've seen some reports come back where they come back testing positive for everything. They have Lyme, and Bartonella, and Babesia, and are looking at Anaplasma. Well, just realistically I think it's highly likely [inaudible 00:21:33] carry all of that.

Dr, Darren: I mean it's not impossible, but it seems unlikely. So yeah. I think I'd rather stick with some of the labs that don't necessarily do only that. That's something you could use in conjunction with some of the other things, but looking at the immune response tells us a little bit about activity, tells us a little bit about how your immune system is responding. So again, at the end of the day, Lyme is ultimately a clinical diagnosis. You have to use your best clinical judgment. But I think we all feel better when we've got something on paper that helps support our treatment because of course, we don't want to put people through unnecessary treatment either.

Christine: Totally. That would be my next question actually. So obviously if you want to read about the whole treatment people have to buy a book, that is obviously the first thing. But if we would just to condense it a little bit and say, okay, through my journey I've learned that this and this, this may be is really key, and it's something that has been really helpful to my clients. So let's even say if I have someone here in Europe and I think I have a suspicion and I'm just like, okay I want to put a part of the protocol, I really want to focus in the Lyme as well because I think that is a reason why you're feeling the way you do. Because I mean Kendra and I, we both have our niches but in the end, very often the way that our clients feel doesn't have to do with our niche actually.

Kendra: Yeah, totally.

Christine: It doesn't have anything to do with our niche, it's just a side effect of the underlying cause. Right. So what would be a couple of things that you'd say to practitioners, if the suspected, even if you cannot test for it at this moment, here is one or two things that you can try with your clients and see if it makes a difference? And if it does, that might be a very well indicate that you should dig deeper into Lyme.

Dr, Darren: Well, I think initially you got to go very basic. And the first thing I always look at with my patients is the gut. The gut is so critically important for your overall health, and since up to 80% of your immune function that comes from the gut, if that's not functioning well, everything else you do, it's going to be harder to get the results you want. So I think just very fundamentally, go back, make sure everything in the gut is working the way it's supposed to. Are people digesting their food, assimilating their food. Is there any element of gut inflammation? So I think you can start with that foundational stuff. And of course, there's a lot of nutrients to help support gut repair is that whether you're using probiotics are glutamine or digestive enzymes or butyrate. It's kind of whatever your patient needs to take that. So I think between focusing on the gut and diet. Diet is enormous and I can't sort of understate how important that is for patients because I've seen plenty of people who take antibiotics, or if they're doing something very proactive to treat the infection, but they're not making a lot of progress, and we kind of go back through their diet and their gut and it's like, well their gut is mess. They're eating like crap. And you're not really that surprised since you're not getting better.

Dr, Darren: So I talk a lot in my book about specifically an alkaline diet and an alkaline diet for people who aren't familiar. It's just eating foods that support your tissue, being really in a more alkaline state except for your skin, your stomach, your bladder. And for women, the vaginal area, which is very acidic to protect against outside invaders, the rest of your tissues, pretty alkaline. So when you eat foods that really break down into a more alkaline state that allows those cells to function the way they're supposed to. So all the enzymes work the way they're supposed to. And surprising when I was writing the book, I was doing all this research looking on an alkaline diet. And of course, I've known about it forever. And there are books that have been written for decades. But surprisingly, I only found three studies on an alkaline diet. It's not something actually been very well researched at all. Apparently-

Christine: Yeah, I say that all the time.

Dr, Darren: I was really surprised. Now, however, the three studies that were done were all very positive and they found it helps facilitate tissue repair, nerve repair, bone growth. So there's a lot of positive things that happen by following an alkaline diet and having tried different diets with my Lyme patients over the years. I mean we've tried, you know, Autoimmune Paleo, and we've tried Keto and we've tried Candida Diet and so forth. I found that this diet is the most sustainable and easy to follow, people will actually stick with this.

Dr, Darren: And I think if we kind of go back to our true Paleo forefathers, this is the way they truly ate, we mostly a plant-based diet. We killed when we could, we did eat animal protein but it wasn't the bulk of our diet and of course, we didn't eat junk food, and we didn't eat anything that was sort of came in farming much later. So we really try and stay away from foods that are very acid forming in the body. So that's dairy products, that's junk food, that's coffee, things of that nature. So the coffee is the one that kills everybody because they love coffee and-

Christine: Tell me about it.

Dr, Darren: I can speak tone it-

Kendra: Get right down right before this call.

Dr, Darren: No, when I was in the throes of Lyme, I was a regular coffee drinker and I found I would drink coffee my neuropathy would flare up, and if it got worse I would stop. It would get better. I started again and we get worse. I mean, so I tried it a few times and it was pretty consistent. Even just a couple of steps was enough that would flare me. So this concept that, well it's only a little bit, well it depends on your sensitivity level and I think a little for some people is too much. So I tell people when they start this just tell the line. I know it kind of sucks, but follow the program and if you can stick with it you're going to get the best results out of it. And now realistically over time as people improve, they can be a bit more flexible with the Diet. But when you're initially starting it, it's better just to kind of stick to the program in that way that you're going to get the most benefit from it. So I think if people really start focusing on diet gut first, then you can start moving into more therapies that get into actually treating an active infection. And again, I'm a big proponent of using herbs. I mean, I've probably written one antibiotic prescription in a decade. I just don't find the need for it.

Dr, Darren: I think herbs are extremely powerful if you know how to use them in the right way. And fortunately there's a lot of companies out there that make really great herbal products, so you don't have to put everything together on your own. And if you're trained in herbs, you can use companies that put these formulas together that really are effective at treating Lyme. All these co-infections, unlike when you use antibiotics, you have to know what your treating because the protocol for Lyme might be different from Bartonella, which might be different than but Babesia and so forth. The beauty of the herbs is that a lot of the herbs kind of cover all of it. So you have to make a very little variation with all of the co-infections.

Dr, Darren: There are some cases where we know these herbs a little bit more effective against Babesia, this one's maybe a little bit better against Bartonella. But by and large, I was at a conference with Dr. Lee Cowden and he's got a whole protocol and the heat developed with neutral medics. And he kept talking about a lot of these herbs being keep herbs, k e e p, keep herbs. Keeper herbs and I finally asked him, I said, I don't really need to keep herbs. because well it kills everything except people. I'm like, okay. I guess that makes sense. So a lot of these herbs they're good against bacteria and viruses and fungi and parasites. So again, we're covering kind of a pretty broad base, but what I like about the herbs too is that we don't see the same level of gut disruption that you get with antibiotics.

Christine: Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. I feel bad for Lyme people because some of the people I've spoken to, they've spent a year on like all these antibiotics and you're just like, oh my God. Like, you're sure, maybe you can get rid of the Lyme, but like what is done to your system? Like you're going to have to now recover from antibiotic use. Right?

Dr, Darren: Well exactly. And I think when I was doing some of the research and my professional experience, people need to understand that when you're on antibiotics, of course, you're compromising your normal microbiome. And we always think of the gut. But remember your microbiome is more than your gut microbiome. You've got the skin microbiome, bladder microbiome. Yeah, we've got a microbiome everywhere now. So it's disrupting that whole ecology of your system. We also know that a lot of antibiotics damage your mitochondria most of the time patients I work with are tired. Well, it's going to be really hard getting your energy back if your mitochondrial damaged, that's the powerhouse of the cell is literally what creates energy.

Dr, Darren: So between wiping out your microbiome, disrupting your mitochondria. We have to look at the risk-benefit ratio. And I think here are the risk really outweigh the benefits. And when you look at the research, there's a lot of studies that show that when you've got chronic Lyme anyway, antibiotics just really aren't that effective. You might get a little bit of benefit, and I've seen this clinically, the people they're on antibiotics are feeling a little bit better the minute they come off antibiotics within days to weeks, they're back to square one. So you really haven't accomplished anything long term or there's just no benefit at all. I mean, I'll give you an example. I have one patient, I was working with a who had been working with another practitioner who's very well known in the Lyme world and uses a lot of antibiotics. She had been on antibiotics for 12 years continuously.

Kendra: Oh my God, how do you survive-

Dr, Darren: Has been hospitalized three times because of the antibiotics-[crosstalk 00:30:34].

Kendra: My body was a rack like, I couldn't tolerate them. I had an allergic reaction and then going into shock. So now we're going to use that again. But it destroyed my gut. Like I wasn't already just say no.

Dr, Darren: Considering the diversity of your gut in particular even if you take probiotics, it's not possible to repopulate everything that comprises your gut. It's a drop in the bucket. So when you look at animal studies, when they give an animal at least a mouse, one dose of antibiotics, it can take up to six months to repopulate the rack gut. So what happens for humans when we're on for weeks and months at a time or longer. This particular person was hospitalized three times because of the antibiotics because they were so toxic. So I hear this from people who've been on antibiotics, and they've done well if that's been your path, great. But again, I'm seeing the people where that hasn't been the case and they've actually not done well on antibiotics.

Dr, Darren: So, that's where I'm kind of coming from. But for people who even have acute Lyme, I've treated with herbs at works perfectly fine. We are able to get people through their acute stages again without causing a lot of damage to the gut or the Mitochondria. So at this point, I'm just not sure where the antibiotics fit in. My one patient that I did right antibiotics for, this particular person had a very longstanding case of Lyme. I actually use the lab called Fry labs. So Fry lab is very interesting. Stephen Fry is the medical director, he started doing a lot of microscopy and then what they do is take your blood, and they look under a microscope. And what's really interesting about it is that he's finding a lot of BioFilm in people's blood who've been diagnosed with Lyme.

Dr, Darren: BioFilm is not Borrelia. What he's finding is yeast, fungi. So it's almost like, the Lyme sets the stage that yeast becomes more problematic, but unless people aren't getting classic Yeast Infections. I mean, they're not getting itchy and for women vaginal yeast infections, oral thrush. They're having other types of problems, so we know that just no yeast can be much more difficult to kill than bacteria. It's a more complex organism and if it's varied in BioFilm, it may be even more challenging. So there is an antibiotic protocol of helping to break down BioFilm, get rid of the yeast. And the antibiotics I prescribed were actually more for the BioFilm. And then we used a Doxycyclin combination with an antifungal and these patients actually been responding very well. Having tried a lot of other natural things for a long time that really didn't provide any benefit. But I think in his case the Lyme was really the lesser part of the problem. It was probably this deep-rooted yeast that never had really been addressed. But that's my one case of antibiotics in a decade so. Fortunately, those people do pretty well with herbs.

Christine: Yeah. And we always say there's a time and place for everything, right? It's not about beating ourselves up if you need it, you need it. So Kendra and I whenever we interview people, we want to learn so much more. Right? So we're like, now I want to become an expert in this. I need to learn everything fast here. It's just to do about like we have to kind of submit. But if we have someone, where we really acutely suspect that they have Lyme, I don't have the energy at a one to read up on everything that has to do with Lyme. So how do you refer out? So would we tell them, for example, to connect with you? Is there like a community where we could say, check out this website and you will find a practitioner that is reputable in helping you with Lyme? How do you work with your patients?

Dr, Darren: Well, again, I have people who call me from all over the world and they're looking for someone local to work with. Certainly here on North America, there's a group called ILADS, the International Lyme and Associated Disease Society. And they do have doctors around the world that have members, so people who are part of this group have gone through more extensive training, online diagnosis, and treatment. Now most of the doctors who go to that training, they do use antibiotics as part of their treatment. There are some of those practitioners that do practice a bit more like me and focus more on natural substances, but at least you'll get something where most doctors tend to dismiss people who have Lyme so they can go to the ILADS website.

Dr, Darren: They don't post the list of doctors on the website, but you can email them and then they'll send you whomever you say, Hey, I live in Toronto or New York, and then they'll say, "No, these are people we know who are in the area." Again, I keep a very short list of just people I personally know whom I think they do a really nice job of treating Lyme, people are always welcome to contact my office and I can at least try and see if I know someone in the area. I do work remotely with people so people are really in an area where they just can't find anyone. Fortunately for the kinds of things we're doing, we can do remotely if it's about giving you guidance on diets and nutrition and herbs, that's done pretty easily through that format.

Christine: That's what I wanted to hear.

Kendra: I have a question for you, so the few clients I've had who've had Lyme and they want to work with me anyways. What I've noticed is that when I put them through a protocol and I do a lot of like gut stuff, I'm really big into mineral testing. They don't respond well like anyone else responds. They seem to be highly reactive. Like every time you try to give them something, they have this like crazy reaction and we just whittled down what they can eat and what they can take in. At some point you're like, I don't know what to do anymore. Why is that?

Dr, Darren: Yeah. There's something about being exposed to Lyme that makes a lot of people very hypersensitive to their world. All of a sudden they do have food allergies, they become sensitive to mold, and pollen, and dust, and chemicals. I can only imagine that we've got some research that when you get exposed to Lyme, it triggers really an autoimmune kind of problem. Well that TH2 pathway, T helper cell 2 that drives autoimmunity is the same pathway that drives allergy. So I think that by sort of up-regulating that part of the immune system, you're sort of accidentally developing all these allergies and sensitivities that you didn't have before. And I've seen that pretty consistently in my population as well. So in that case, again, it's really about going back and being very simple and very basic. You can't go in and throw the kitchen sink at these folks.

Dr, Darren: You have to start very slow with everything. So whether its herbs or any supplement, start small work your way up, you have to establish tolerance first. Once you've established tolerance, then you can start increasing the dose. But for those people, in particular, I love Tri-Salts. It's probably my favorite supplement. It's a combination of sodium, potassium and calcium bicarbonate, and the bicarbonates something we've been using an environmental medicine for 60 years or longer.

Dr, Darren: What we know with bicarbonate is that's an alkalizing agent. So when you alkalize the body, you down-regulate that inflammatory response and allergic response. I mean, I've had kids having asthma attacks that parents can stop it by giving their child Alka Seltzer gold or Tri-Salts every hour. So we know that it has this capacity to do that. So for people who are constantly reacting to their world, this is just an inexpensive, easy way to start help down regulating that response so that they can just tolerate things better. Because you're going to have a hard time, with a lot of therapies if they don't tolerate it. So this is just a really nice way to kind of set the base to get them not so reactive. And then you can start layering in your other things as you feel like they tolerate it.

Kendra: So that was potassium bicarbonate.

Dr, Darren: Well Tri-Salts as a combination of sodium, potassium, and calcium bicarbonate there's actually two companies that make Tri-Salts. One uses sodium, potassium, and calcium. The other one uses sodium, potassium, and magnesium bicarbonates. So it's really for the bicarbonate more than the minerals attached to it. The amount of calcium, magnesium, potassium you get is relatively small. It's really more for the bicarbonate.

Christine: So that basically in effect helps break down the BioFilm and make them less reactive. Is that what you're saying?

Dr, Darren: No, it probably has very little do with the BioFilm. We don't exactly know. It's probably more about alkalizing the body and shifting the way the cell functions. But we've been using this for years and environmental medicine and we just know clinically it helps make people less reactive, reduces inflammation. Like, if someone tells me they went into Yankee candle shop, and they started getting a headache from the scent, I'd say try taking Tri-Salts every hour, and then their headache goes away. So does has seems to have some impact on down regulating that immune response. But beyond that, I mean no one, as far as I know, has ever done any research on it.

Christine: So interesting. I'm like blown away. You have like all these different levers in your head going like, okay, do this and this connection, this connection. So yeah,

Dr, Darren: The cheap way around that too is Arm and Hammer Baking Soda, Baking Soda sodium bicarbonate. We know the potassium by carbonate is more effective than sodium bicarbonate, but in a pinch, most people keep that yellow box in their fridge. So if somebody needed something, and they didn't have access, they can just pull out, take a little bit of that powder out of the box, mixing some water and start drinking. It doesn't taste great, but it does the job.

Christine: And so you could use it like an as needed. If somebody is having some flare up or reaction to something like you could try it every hour as needed, and it would reduce that response.

Kendra: Okay. That's so super cool.

Christine: That's going to be really helpful for some of my people.

Kendra: For sure.

Dr, Darren: Cheap and easy. I'm all for it.

Kendra: I like it. Definitely.

Dr, Darren: Well, people with Lyme they spend so much money on treatments. It's nice to have something that's inexpensive, easy to do, accessible. So this is a kind of a staple in my practice. Most of my patients end up on Tri Salt at some point just as a way of kind of down-regulating that inflammatory response.

Christine: I love it. Definitely.

Kendra: Interesting. All right. What haven't we talked about? We've covered a lot.

Christine: This is really good. My brain is starting to like whop.

Dr, Darren: Well, I think the other thing I would add that's important for people listening to this is, again we're thinking about the person as a whole. We have to really look at lifestyle as well. I think it gets overlooked a lot. And the mind-body connection is horribly important. When people have had any kind of chronic illness, it's very easy to get caught in the mire of not feeling well every day. And I think we spend very little time helping people with their mental aspects of dealing with a chronic illness. So I'm a big advocate for doing a few things to help improve that. One is to make sure that you have a support network there for you. And what ends up happening is that even if you've got family and friends, people say, "Oh how you feeling today Darren?

Dr, Darren: The knee jerk response is great." And deep down you're like, no, actually I feel pretty horrible. And you want to be nice, you want to be polite, you don't really think people want to know the truth. And so it's really hard sometimes when you're not feeling well to be able to share that even with some of your closest friends and family. So it's nice to have kind of an independent third party that can be part of your team, where you can just go and unload and be honest and it's okay. So whether it's a therapist support group you're involved with there's a lot of avenues to do that. But I think it's important that people have that space that they can really unload and be open about everything and not feel like they're burdening other people because again, your mind and bodies are very much connected, and it's just human nature to get caught up in that. So to have that safety net, I think it's very helpful. In addition, I think making sure that we get good sleep.

Dr, Darren: Christine this is right up your alley. The most people see once they get exposed to Lyme, and they may have been great sleepers before, but now they're terrible sleepers, whether it's difficulty falling asleep, staying asleep again with all the research out there on the importance of getting that deep restorative sleep. That's when neurons repair themselves. That's when the rest of your tissue repairs itself. How are you going to heal a damaged brain or a damaged joint, if you never get that deep sleep, and you're just getting under the radar and we know that a lot of the sleep medicines out there kind of get you under the radar but don't necessarily get you deep sleep. We have a lot of natural ways of okay ... We could have a whole another podcast just on sleep, but it's-

Christine: Actually, we've never done that.

Kendra: We should do that. Great idea.

Dr, Darren: Sleep and chronic illness. Then they go hand in hand and not just winding.

Kendra: No need to view absolutely.

Dr, Darren: But if you think about biologically this is where your body repairs itself and the more that you miss of that, the harder it is to feel well. Again, I know for my sleep, I mean I was never a great sleeper before I had Lyme but definitely, after Lyme, I became a much worst sleeper and with the interesting paradox here is that you're bone tired during the day, and you think you would just be exhausted. The night would come and you would just be zonked out, and then you're kind of in this tired wired state. So you've got this adrenal dysfunction, messing with your circadian rhythm, so you're not sleeping well, you're not sleeping deeply, but you're exhausted all day and it just becomes a vicious cycle. So my feeling is whatever you need to do to get good quality sleep.

Dr, Darren: And I think for most Americans anyway, a lot of it's about, put down the iPad make sure that when you're getting ready to go to bed, you're disengaging from all that stimulating activity. So I tell people an hour, and a half to two hours before you actually want to go to bed, no electronics, read a book by the candles, take a bath, do something that's actually going to get your brain in that right state. I've actually started using a thing called the Fisher Wallace device, which is a little machine that you clip to your ears, and it basically sends a wavelength through your brain that helps sort of down-regulated and turns it off. So for some people something like that can be helpful in it, do saying-

Kendra: I want that now I need it.

Christine: I can see like reminds me of the hot Ma thing. What is it that, yeah,

Dr, Darren: Actually, I just got it right here. This is a Fisher Wallace device.

Christine: Nice. And tell me what's it called Fisher?

Dr, Darren: Fisher Wallace. It's brand spanking new. I got my own one right here. Since there is a video podcast, I'll just get a quick show of what it is. This is it. It's really simple. It's just a little box, and it's got some wires on it. Then you can see these pads, but the pads up on your temples, on your ears, there's a couple of locations you can put it, and there are just two or three settings on it and you start off at the first set and see how it goes. And you can work your way up as you feel like you tolerate it, but you do two sessions twice a day. It takes about 15 to 20 minutes each session, but it just gets your body into a sort of a more relaxed state.

Dr, Darren: So for anyone who's got ADD, anxiety, insomnia, it can be very beneficial. And in the United States, this is an FDA medically approved device off and you can get your insurance to pay for it. But if your insurance doesn't pay for it, I think it cost seven or $800. But again, I've used it with a handful of people and they've been responding quite well. So for people who are tired of taking one more pill, this is a really easy thing that people can do to help induce a deeper sleep.

Christine: That's awesome.

Kendra: So what does it feel like, like when you put it on and you switch it on.

Dr, Darren: Yeah, it's a wavelength. It's really below your threshold. So it's not like you feel a buzzing or anything like that. You don't really feel anything. Do you feel the dampness of the sponge on your head? That's pretty much it.

Christine: Okay. And you can relax while you're using it or can you do.

Dr, Darren: Well, you could do other things with it. I mean, once it's attached, you could walk around and do things. I usually tell people just do it when you do kind of meditation while you're doing it.

Christine: Yeah, that makes sense.

Dr, Darren: Just to indulge it there on your phone, playing candy crush or whatever you do and just to sit there quietly put on some nice music, help your brain, help you. So trying to get into a bit of a meditation state probably helps that a little bit better.

Christine: I think I'm going to grab me, I love that.

Kendra: I'm someone who's never been a great sleeper. I go through periods where I sleep like a boss, but other times, I just go through these periods where I don't sleep well. So I've been looking for something like that, so I'm going to check it out.

Dr, Darren: Yeah. Yeah. I said I'm all for it. I think there's a lot of interesting devices out there. There's one called Alpha stem, which is kind of similar to the Fisher Wallace here's a few different devices I've seen at conferences that all kind of accomplish the same thing. But, the Fisher Wallace, I like it just because, again, it's pretty easy to use. There's not a lot of settings you have to navigate. You don't have to be a genius to figure out how to do it. Same thing with the Alpha stem. The office seems pretty easy. That one, you do have little clips that go on your ear lobes and you just literally turn it on. I mean, that's it. There are no settings to it. So there's some, a few easy devices out there that for people, again, if they've tried different supplements, things like Melatonin or five different herbs and if it's not really doing the job. So this may help you.

Christine: I'm over Melatonin. I'm just over it. I have an automatic I roll. It goes-

Kendra: Well, it doesn't work for everyone. That's for sure.

Dr, Darren: Well, people need to understand Melatonin's job is to get you to sleep. It's not going to keep you asleep. And for most of the people I see falling asleep is generally not the bigger problem. The bigger problem is they wake multiple times in the night. So Melatonin is not gonna do much for that anyway. So again, I like something like the Fisher Wallace, just that I think has a better chance of getting to that deeper restorative sleep. And again, that's where all that good tissue repairs going to happen.

Christine: Totally amazing. I'm so grateful that we had you on the podcast because it's been like a such a goldmine of knowledge, and the questions that can run I had and just like such good advice. So thank you so much.

Dr, Darren: That was my pleasure. Thank you for having me.

Christine: Kendra, do you have a last minute question?

Kendra: where you're like I just want to know where we can find out more about you. What's the name of your book and how can people connect with you online?

Dr, Darren: Sure. So the book is called the Lyme solution and that's available through Amazon or any major book retailer and they can find me online at Darren Ingles, nd.com. It's d a r i n i n g e l s. N D.com and we'd love for people to sign up for our newsletter. We've got a lot of great information about Lyme disease and other health related things and all of our social media tags are at Darren ingles nd, so you can follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and so forth.

Christine: Awesome. I love it and it's so cool that you on social media so much. We do it again.

Dr, Darren: Well, we'll try.

Christine: That's another episode where we're going to talk about that.

Kendra: But social media, we need to talk about it. Yes.

Christine: All right but I think this was a pretty amazing, fantastic episode. If you guys out there thinks so too. And if you learned at least one new thing, which is not difficult in this one, then please head over to iTunes and leave us a five star review telling us how awesome we are, and will appreciate it and read it out loud, of course, for everyone to hear. So I think that's it for the episode today. So make sure that you switch on again in two weeks when we have our brand new spanking episode coming out. And Yeah, hope you have a wonderful day. Bye.

This is the first Biz Bomb episode, where we bring you HUGE business tips and tools that will blow your mind! Today Christine talks about her favorite app tool - Evernote, a great tool to organize your notes. It's great not just for taking notes during conferences, or making your grocery lists but can also be used with your clients during sessions. ​

You can use Evernote on your laptop, desktop, phone, iPad..basically anything that you typically do your work on. But it's great because you could take notes in Evernote during one of your client sessions from your desktop, and still access them from the Evernote app on your phone or iPad to review later! No more writing memo's on your hand and hope they don't wash off (and don't get us started on the toxins that get into your body when you write on your hand!)

Evernote also organizes your notes for you by looking for similarities in your documents either by documents with similar titles or you can organize yourself by color coding or adding tags to your notes.

​In addition to making your own notes through the app, you can also scan other documents and save them to Evernote so they are all in one place! So let's say your client has completed their intake form - you can scan it using the Scannable app, save it to Evernote and then create another document to take your clients notes in! And they are all in the same place ​and organized.

All right, everyone. And welcome to the Biz Bomb of today. And this is the first time I'm actually doing this, so basically the purpose of this is really to help you with day-to-day tools that I use in my business, just as Kendra does. And, hopefully together, with our brains combined, we will blow yours with our biz knowledge, and just kind of tips and tricks that we use.So my Biz Bomb tip today is a program that maybe some of you know, maybe some of you don't, or a lot of you know, it's Evernote. I love Evernote. It's just a fantastic little thing. It's an app that you can use on your desktop, that you can use on your phone, on your iPad, and I use it for everything. And the way that it compares to Notes for example is that I describe it as a shoebox, and I'm more of a shoebox kind of person, where you dump everything, you know, you have this shoebox and you know, "This is the shoebox with all my receipts. This is the shoebox with all my invoices. This is the shoebox with my manuals, and so forth," or you just have one big shoebox.And the reason why I like it is that the search function is phenomenal. I use it all of the time. And you can get as vague and as geeky with it as you want. So I don't tag a lot in it, I literally just do ... you have a to-do thing, a title, I try to make that as descriptive, so I'm telling myself, "Okay, what I'm going to use, what would I search for," I put that in the title, and there you go.The thing is, it's actually, Evernote is going to look for things that refer to each other, so it's actually going to suggest to you other notes that might be the same topic, which is fantastic. And you can get as geeky with it as you want. So you can tag it, you can create different notebooks, you can color code it, you can also use speech, voice memos. And I just adore it. So I use Evernote all the time on all my devices, and it's fantastic. I use it, as well as just doing my grocery list, just as if I'm at a conference and I'm taking notes. And also, with the iPad and my Apple Pen, I use it when I have preliminary sessions with clients who come to my office. So we sit down, and I take their first intake where I just talk to them and where they tell me that I think are important, I just jot it down on my iPad in Evernote. So I have a client notebook, and then I have little notebooks, and they're for the different potential clients that I work it. And so I just note down the notes in there. So it's fantastic. The other thing that goes with it that I highly, highly, highly recommend is the note that scans. So I think it's called Scannable, and you take a picture of a document and you can choose to save it as a PDF or a JPEG, and what it does, it's much more than a picture, it literally scans it. So you have crystal clear lettering, it looks exactly like a document, it's fantastic. And then you can just say, "Save to Evernote," which means that it's accessible on all of your devices. So I've done this so many times that, in a pinch, I just took a document, took the picture with the app, it scanned it, I had it in my Dropbox straight away, because I go to Evernote, then I save it to my Dropbox, and I could sign it. So I merge different apps that I'm going to talk about later in the following episodes. But get that app that goes with it.So that's my tip for today. I hope you have a wonderful rest of the week, and I'll talk to you soon.